


like the earth around the sun

by goodmorninglou



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alpha Harry, Alpha Liam Payne, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Beta Niall Horan, Denial, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Frottage, Light Choking, Lots of Sex, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Maybe - Freeform, NO rape but discussion of it, Omega Louis, Omega Zayn Malik, Smut, The Author Regrets Everything, True Mates, Zayn being the only smart one, bonded Ziam, daddy kink?, idk have fun, idk how to tag you think I’d know by now, side Ziam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:01:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodmorninglou/pseuds/goodmorninglou
Summary: “Maybe we just...” Louis hid his face in Harry’s neck and choked down a whimper. “Roll with it? It has to, like, die down after a bit, right? And we can figure out how to stop it when it’s not so... intense. Right?”Say yes. I need you to say yes. I need you to agree with me.Harry’s hand sweeps calming strokes up and down his side, wide and warm. His thumb bumped over the ridges of his ribs.“Whatever you need, Louis.” Harry assured. Louis knows with morbid certainty that he’d wanted to say Omega, and it sends shivers sparking down his spine.He shut his eyes against Harry’s skin and suffocated the sigh building in his chest.Or, the one where Harry bursts in on Louis in heat and things only get more complicated from there.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik/Liam Payne
Comments: 54
Kudos: 678





	like the earth around the sun

**Author's Note:**

> hiiii this took a long while so i hope you enjoy  
> sorry if there’s typos
> 
> I AM NOT AUTHORIZING TRANSLATIONS OR REPOSTS AT THIS TIME. seriously y’all, unfortunately ive had some problems with translations and with reposting and it’s frustrating and stuff so sorry but please don’t ask, please don’t translate and please don’t repost. all my love <333
> 
> ———ALSO———  
> there are mentions of rape in this story, but NO rape occurs and no past-rape occurs  
> there are also EXPLICIT sex scenes. if that’s not your thing, then there’s no judgement, but this is full of it just btw
> 
> anyway, enjoy !!

There was a blaze in Louis’ heart today.

Logically, when he thought through the fog and sickening desire that glassed his eyes, he knew that he was about to go into heat. That he needed to gather snacks and water, a few more pillows and blankets, and lock his bedroom door. Logically, he knew that he needed to text Niall to keep Harry  _ away _ from the flat, and set out some clean sheets that didn’t smell like his alpha roommate and best friend.

But that logic was shrinking with every moment that Louis didn’t have Harry  _ inside him. _

The first thing he did was sit up on the couch, panting and wiping sweat from his brow. His fingers shook and his phone slipped in his palm, but he still managed to find he and Niall’s text thread and type without any errors.

_ Heat_ _,_ it read, nauseatingly real on the screen.  _ Started early. Keep Harry away from the flat. _

He swung one leg over the edge of the couch, and then the other, wincing at the slick that wet his thighs. It had soaked through his joggers. His legs were trembling when he stood, the hot friction inside his stomach rumbling and itching with a desperate need for  _ knot_ _,_ for  _Harry’s_ knot, for his  _ pups_—

He stumbled into the kitchen and snatched at any food within reach as well as an armful of water bottles, high-pitched keens escaping his throat on painful hooks. A red flush worked its way up his neck when he realized one of them was Harry’s name.

He didn’t have time for that. Harry was his best friend, and nothing more. It was just because he was an  _ alpha_ _._ Louis’ omega knew that Harry was an alpha, craved it like an addict. He needed an alpha. Alpha.  _ Alpha.  He needs an alpha. _

Louis knocked his head against the side of the fridge to clear the haze of impetuous hunger, and without another moment, he staggered into his room and bolted the door behind him. His snacks landed unceremoniously on the floor beside his bed, and his clothes followed close after, shucked recklessly off his body like he was a toddler. Louis had crashed into his mattress when his phone dinged.

And he’s not far gone enough yet to remember he’d texted Niall and he needed to make sure that Harry  _ stayed away. _

If Louis weren’t so unwilling to acknowledge his own emotions, he might be able to admit why he didn’t actually want Harry there. Why he doesn’t want Harry’s alpha to know his omega that way, to comfort him in a heat, to give him his knot and paint his insides white. He wouldn’t be able to control himself. Louis knows and his omega knows and the whole world except  _ Harry _ knows that he’d beg for it. To be scented. Bonded. Mated. To be face-down in his mattress with a bloody bite on his neck and Harry endlessly deep in him, filling him. To be barefoot and swollen with Harry’s pups. He wants it all. He couldn’t stop himself.

And Harry... Harry’s a good alpha. Attentive and caring and protective of Louis even though Louis isn’t even  _ his _ omega. And if the world knows that Louis couldn’t keep from begging for it, they also know Harry couldn’t keep from giving him what he wanted.

His hand flung out blindly, grappling for his phone and wriggling his hips against the soft sheets.

There’s one word on the screen, from Niall.

_ Fuck. _

Louis whined into the air, squeezing his eyes shut and tossing his phone carelessly across the room. It hits the wall with a sharp thump and clatters to the floor.

His door is locked. An alpha-proof lock. And Harry has the strength to resist.

Except.

Except no alpha is strong enough to stay away when an omega in heat is calling their name, which Louis  knows he does. No alpha can deny an omega who’s pleading for them.

Louis slipped two fingers into himself, sobbing out, and it didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was getting knotted. Quelling the inferno in his stomach, all over his body. All that mattered was the heat.

He hears the growling first, on the other side of the door, when he’s got three fingers fucking into himself and a mess of cum and sweat on his stomach. Then it’s the rattling of the doorknob, futile against the locks. And then it’s Harry’s voice, calling out so low and gravelly: _“_ _ Louis. Louis _ _.”_ like a desperate chant. And he knew this would happen, knew that he would be screaming Harry’s name in sickening  _ want _ and that obviously Harry’s alpha would rush to help, to protect, to knot, but all that he knows is that there’s an alpha on the other side of the wood and he needs to keep him there no matter how much his omega squeals. He’s only an hour in. He’s still lucid. Hasn’t fallen into the worst of it. He can tamp down the omega enough to get Harry  _ away _ without opening the door.

And then he smells him.

Harry has always smelled exceptional. Woodsy, like the floor of a pine forest, with something inarguably  _strong _ lingering beneath it, a thrum of power like lightning. He smells like trees after a thunderstorm, like the earth with a hint of danger, an energetic forest in the middle of a summer downpour. He smells like everything Louis has ever wanted, everything his omega has ever needed. A sturdy anchor that still zaps with an unfamiliar twang of  _risk_.

“Har-ry!” Louis screams, and comes untouched onto his stomach, whining and squirming when the heat only intensifies. “Please, need you, need your knot, please—“ he babbled nonsensically into his pillow, mouth running rampant. He has enough consciousness left to blush, but not enough to stop.

The rattling begins anew, harsher and louder. “Louis, open the door. Baby. Let me in. Let your alpha in. Baby, can smell you, smell so good. Your alpha needs you so bad.”

_Let him in._

_ We can’t. _

_ We can. _

“ _ Niall, go _ !” Harry barks from outside the door, and that’s when Louis smells the calming scent of a beta, like fresh laundry and warm fires.

“I can’t let you in there.” Niall said. His voice was wobbling in strain but standing firm. A rapidly shrinking part of Louis’ sanity was grateful for his other best mate.

Harry lets off another wave of pheromones, pouring through the door and wrapping Louis up in a hot frenzy. The sanity disappears altogether.

“Harry, Harry, Harry.” Louis whimpered, squirming restlessly against the sheets as the blaze threatens to burn him from the inside out.

“No.” Niall says again, and Louis cries out.

He’s saying it before the last rational pieces of his mind can stop him.

“Don’t stop him, please, need him. Harry!” He cries, dragging himself off the bed and onto the floor. A gush of slick soaks the floorboards when he crawls along, Harry’s scent growing more intoxicating with every inch, his whole body sweating in need. “Harry, need you, Harry, Harry.  _Alpha_.”

On the other side of the door, a roar is released.

Louis is lying on the floor before the door when he finally manages to slide the lock open, hands wet with slick and sweat, mouth gaping. His legs are splayed haphazardly, curvy and golden. One of his palms is hot where it rests below his belly, where the fire began, where it burned the hottest and brightest. He’s sprawled like that when the door swings open.

And there’s Harry, his Harry, his alpha who is not  his alpha. The omega within him doesn’t know the difference. It only knows the scent of what it needs, the swirling warmth of an alpha body, the encompassing darkness of Harry’s pupils. It only knows how Harry grounds out: “ _Omega_ _._ ” with equal care and arousal, and how he bends over to sweep Louis’ frail body into his arms and kick the door closed.

Louis is back on the mattress for all of a second before he starts babbling, mind lost to the heat and the intoxicating presence of all he’s truly wanted for  _years_. “Need your knot, Alpha, need your everything. Need you to bond me. Give me your pups, please, I need you, knot me.”

Harry’s eyes have softened as he strokes Louis’ face, his body. His damp waist and soft stomach and shapely thighs. He’s going to take care of Louis. Give him what he needs. Feed him, nest with him, knot him. He’s going to bury himself deep in Louis and allay that sparking fire that courses in his veins.

“Shh, Omega.” Harry whispers, lips brushing feather-soft along his cheekbones. “I have you now. My pretty omega.” One hand stroked Louis’ hair. The other slipped between his thighs and dipped into him. His emerald gaze didn’t stray from Louis’ face when his spine arched, when his mouth opened in a silent scream, eyes rolling back into his skull. “I will take care of you. Do you trust me to?”

Louis whined and arced to press the length of his body against Harry’s, cock trapped against his hard stomach. “Trust you with my life, with all of me. Please, Harry, alpha,” he whined, and tears blurred his eyes.

Harry was naked above him in less time than it took to blink. When Louis’ ankles locked in the small of his back, he leaned down to nuzzle their cheeks together and pushed in, in, in.

“Fuck.” Harry snarls, voice low like two boulders crashing together, and Louis sees his pupils dilate and his alpha spark in the corners of his eyes when he leans back again. “Give you what you need, good boy, my good boy. Fuck you until you’re crying, gagging for it, coming over and over on my cock. Fuck, you feel so good, Lou, Lou—“

Louis’ head tipped back as his jaw slackened and his nails tore into Harry’s shoulders, raking down. The skin was white, and then red, and the track from his left index finger was bleeding, just enough. Harry hissed and sucked on his neck at the feel.

Louis doesn’t know how long it goes on like that, pleading nonsensically for Harry’s knot, coming again, crying at the intensity. He knows when Harry hits his prostate, knows how Harry hooked his feet over his shoulders to change the angle and he _ screamed_, body nearly folding in half in spine-crackling pleasure. He knows he begs for Harry’s pups, for his knot, for his everything, and Harry just pounds into him harder, promising to  _take care, good boy, I’ll take care of you._

He knows he begs Harry to mate him, and instead of doing anything, Harry just leans down and mouths scaldingly at his collarbones, working his cock into Louis even harder.

“Gonna knot you,” Harry rasps against Louis’ ear, and Louis scrabbles at his back for something to hold onto, neck cracking as his head falls backwards, weak and staccato  _ah-ah-ah_ ’s dragging out of his chest with every thrust. He can feel Harry swelling, catching on his rim every time he pulls out.

The headboard pounds into the wall. Louis doesn’t notice. “Yes, give me your knot, give your omega your—fuck, Harry, oh fuck, oh fu—“

Harry presses into him and collapses, knot popping euphorically inside Louis’ body and sending him through one last shaking, sobbing orgasm. He pets Harry’s shoulders. They’re so very broad. Sweaty and shimmering in the moonlight. When did the moon rise?

Sex has never been like that. Heat or no. Louis just found something pyrrhic.

“Omega,” Harry whispers, peppering Louis’ cheeks and chin with kisses, rolling them slowly so their foreheads press together. “Omega, Omega,”

Louis has the energy to breath out, “Alpha,” and run the pad of his finger reverently over Harry’s lip before he slips into sleep.

Harry knots him again when he wakes up at 1:00am, and Louis is just lucid enough to build up his nest around his bed, rubbing his blankets over Harry’s body so they smell  _right_ , cuddling into them under the protective cocoon of soft warmth.  _A lpha_, he whispers sweetly, and Harry scents him over and over again. He’s soft, face pressed to the juncture of his neck and shoulder, comfortably warm and possessive and when Louis mounts him again, begging for his knot, Harry grips his hips and keeps him from flying away.

But isn’t that what Harry always did, in the end?

They fuck in the shower, and on the floor of Louis’ bedroom. They change his sweat-and-cum-soaked sheets for fresh, soft ones, and Louis makes Harry wrap himself in them and scent them up before he even goes close. Harry cooks him breakfast, rewards him for eating so well, makes him drink water and he knots him into subspace and everything in Louis is screaming  _matematemate_.  He knows he begs for it. Why wouldn’t he? Harry is perfect. Everything.

“I can’t.” Harry grounds simply, when Louis is grappling at his back with dull nails and pleading  please, _Alpha, mate me, I want to be your omega, please_ _._

Louis cries out, half in pleasure when Harry drills into his prostate, half in despair at Harry’s refusal to make Louis  _his_. “Why, please, I’ll be good. So good for you, your perfect omega, please.” He whined.

Harry lowered his mouth to the mating spot, and Louis felt a zing like lightning rush through his sparkling, fiery veins. But he just sucked a bruise into Louis’ skin; a placeholder, a placation. Louis almost hissed.

“It’s your heat, Lou.” Harry whispered against the mark, throwing Louis’ feet over his shoulders. “Can’t mate you, just your heat, just your heat,” he chanted. His voice wobbled.

Louis tipped his head back and whimpered: “It’s not my heat.”

Harry stilled. Looked at him.

But there  _was _ heat, churning in fervor beneath his skin, and it flooded Louis’ mind until that rational sliver had once more been soaked in biological instinct.

“Please,  _ Alpha_ , give me your knot, my alpha,” he let out a rasping sob and locked his ankles at the base of Harry’s spine.

Harry shifted into overdrive, pounding him into the mattress, sending the bed frame crashing into the wall, and Louis succumbed to the fire.

He comes out of his heat at dawn, with a red sunrise bleeding through the room and painting the walls crimson. He’s not sure how many days it’s been. There’s an ache in his arse, sore and used, and a pang in his empty stomach. His skin is tacky with sweat.

Harry’s heart beats steadily beneath his palm, chest smooth and hot. Louis stroked two fingers over the left sparrow and exhaled.

Harry nosed at his neck. He was humming softly when Louis breathed out a weak: “‘S nice.”

He stilled, then began again. “Are you with me?”

Louis nodded. His heart beat unevenly in his chest, uncomfortable and harsh, heavy as a mallet pounding against his sternum. “I’m with you.”

Harry sat up and lifted Louis’ pliant body with him, pushing tangled fringe from his blue eyes. “You need to eat something.”

The thought of letting go of Harry made his whole chest ache. His lungs contract.

Still, he shivered and muttered, “Need a shower.” He rubbed at his eyes.

“You go take a shower.” Harry murmured into his hair, green eyes colored tangerine with the rising sun. His face was soft and tired, and Louis’ stomach flipped when he thought of how Harry had taken care of him. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

Louis nodded and pushed himself up, wincing at the pang in his arse. The carpet was fuzzy between his toes.

He stopped with one hand on the doorknob. “Harry?” He whispers gently, but it looks like desire and tastes like  _Alpha_.

The sight of Harry, bare and golden and  _in his bed_ , sheets scrunched around his waist, made Louis’ breath stall. He looked up through his sweeping eyelashes, his tattooed hands limp in his lap. “Yes?”

The words stick on Louis’ tongue, catch behind his teeth. He can’t say them no matter how hard he tries.

All that comes out is, “How long was it?”

“Four days.”

Two less than usual.

He nodded. Closed the door behind him. By the time the shower was running, he could hear Harry moving around in the kitchen, mumbling inarticulately to himself.

Louis didn’t try to hear what he was saying.

Niall’s nose was scrunched when he stepped into the apartment, a duffle bag thrown carelessly over his shoulder, pale brows raised expectantly.

Louis blushed into his eggs and shifted.

“So!” Niall began, plopping himself down in the third chair at the table and planting his forearms on the wood.

Anxiety prickled through Louis’ veins like glass. This was the  last thing he needed. Emotion churned in his stomach, heightened and painful as the remnants of his heat plunked in his body, and the idea of Niall interrogating them  _now _ had an uncomfortable knot forming high in his throat.

“Ni.” Harry began. His voice was low with warning, but the shape of him was unaffected. Calm, even. “It’s normal.”

“Is that what we’re calling it?”

Tears pricked behind Louis’ eyes, and Harry’s head snapped towards him faster than he could blink them away, eyes narrowing.

And then Harry was kneeling at his side, hands cradling his face as his thumbs brushed along his cheekbones, wiping away salty tears. “Don’t cry, Omega,” he whispered reverently, worn-soft eyes glimmering cherry-sweet. “You don’t have to cry.”

Louis fell into him like the tide, curling up in Harry’s waiting lap, nose pressed against his scent gland and eyes shut against the brewing tears. The pain that had manifested beneath his diaphragm dissolved in the circle of Harry’s arms, the enveloping cloud of his assuaging scent. Nerves that had sparked and fidgeted under his skin fell calm, silent like the night sky, utterly at rest as Harry stroked away his unease with slow, feathering touches. 

And he knew, somewhere deep in his racketing mind, that this was not normal. That spending one heat with an alpha didn’t amount to  _this_ , this fiery urge to touch, this unparalleled comfort in their grasp.

A larger, encompassing part of him just didn’t care. It was the part that wanted to mold himself into the circle of Harry’s arms, disappear into the warmth. That had squirmed and cried out when Harry was across the table, out of reach, his skin no longer pressed against Louis’. It was the part that had pleaded for Harry’s knot, for Harry’s bite, for Harry’s soul.

Louis’ omega was attached to Harry’s alpha.

“It’s my omega.” Louis whispered when they were tangled together in his refurbished nest that night. “It wants to mate with you. It thinks...”

He trails off, but Harry nods like he’d finished the sentence. “My alpha, too.” He breathes after a moment. His voice is thick with reluctance and concern, and his lips move in Louis’ hair, soft. Warm.

Louis fell silent. What else could he do? His omega was clinging to Harry, to Harry’s  _alpha_ , thinking it had found it’s mate because Louis and his stupidly deep emotional connection to his best friend had tricked it into believing there was more.

Because that’s what it was, what it had to be. That Louis felt safe with Harry, laughed with him and cried with him and yelled at him. And Harry was a good alpha. Attentive to all omegas, courteous and hyper-aware and just  _good_ , kind to his core. Louis’ omega had connected safety and kindness with  _alpha _ and forged a bridge that was never meant to manifest. Louis just had to trick it back into thinking  _normally_.

And now they’re here. Touching in every possible place they can, Louis’ face shoved into Harry’s scent gland as he inhaled him desperately, omega preening and wriggling joyfully at the undivided attention of the alpha it desired.

Louis rarely cursed his second gender. There was nothing wrong with omegas, and, most of the time, he was relieved that he was one, that he could keep his head and handle his emotions, care for people like it was his job. Make life in his belly, if he ever wanted to.

This wasn’t one of those times.

“What would you like to do?” Harry asked quietly, rubbing his face against Louis’ neck and shoulder in an unconscious scenting.

This is Harry. Harry his best mate. Who ate dirt in the backyard when he was drunk; Louis had watched. Harry who has made life  good while he was in it more than it had ever been when he’d existed out of it, who Louis had sat with at the DMV when his car crashed and laughed at when he cried to romcoms. This is Harry, his best friend, his metaphorical other half.

So why is all of Louis pleading to let Harry knot him, to mate him, even the lucid part? Even the part that  _knows _ that he’s in Harry’s arms, and that nothing has ever felt so right. When Harry was cooking eggs that morning, domestic delight had zinged through him sharp enough to drag out a gasp, and when he knelt on the tiles before Louis’ chair and wiped away his tears, he knew there would be nothing better. Nothing more  _real_. Louis isn’t able to discern his omega’s desires from his own anymore; it’s all clouding into one confusing fog.

It’s not good.

Louis burrowed deeper into Harry’s shoulder, slinging a leg over his hips. The memory of Harry inside him sparks a pang of heat low in his stomach, and he pushed it away. “I don’t know.” Louis sighed finally. “What are we supposed to do?”

Harry had been tracing circles over Louis’ spine. He stopped now.

“Do you think... we should maybe—I don’t know. Keep our distance for a few days?” He whispered, voice sheer with meek insecurity.

His omega rears and snaps furiously, gnashing and snarling at the very prospect. Louis tamps it down.

“That might be a good idea.” He breathed, because they can’t go on like this. Harry is his best mate, the person closest to his soul. They’re not meant to be  _this_. Whatever this is.

It needs to stop. It’s not good and it needs to stop.

Harry shifts, as if he’s going to pull away, but that selfishly possessive and green-eyed monster in Louis’s ribcage snaps to attention and locks his limbs around Harry’s body. A whine bleeds out of his throat.

“In the morning?” He does all he can to make it sound like anything but a whimper. It doesn’t work.

Harry’s mouth pressed against his temple and stayed there.

“In the morning.” He agreed.

He lasts eleven hours after Harry leaves for Liam’s with a bag slung over his shoulder before he starts crying. Twenty-nine before Niall has to wrestle him away from the door and pin him to the couch. Thirty-two before he’s lying despondently in his bed, cuddled up in all of Harry’s old clothes, rubbing his tears into the fabric. It’s not the real thing. Not enough.

And there’s this ice-cold ache nestling against his sternum, a handful of snow pressed painfully to his skin, freezing all of his buzzed nerve-endings. It etched Harry’s name across his skin and painted his being along his bones. He pleads with the air and whimpers to the sky outside the window.

It doesn’t bring Harry back to him.

“I need to see him, Niall.”

Louis stood resolutely in the doorway of their kitchen, firmly meeting Niall’s uneasy gaze. The room is bare without their third roommate.

Niall sighed and shook his head. “Louis, I can’t. You told me not to, no matter what. You both need—“

And suddenly, Louis is screaming.

“I need _ him_, I need  _my alpha_! You can’t keep him away from me, Niall, I  need him!”

The air is red. It buzzes furiously, as does Louis.

“And my alpha needs me, you can’t separate us—“

There’s something biting and howling inside his chest. It takes him a moment to realize it’s his omega, finally snapping, after just three days.

He’s addicted.

“Give him back to me, bring me to him.” Louis fell to his knees, which clanged against the linoleum, the fight leaving him in a dizzying rush. “ _ Please _ .”

“Okay, okay, okay,” Niall assuaged frantically, crouching before him and taking his flushed face between his hands. His lungs ache with exhaust. It takes too long to realize that Niall’s been trying to comfort him since the moment he started yelling. “Okay, just breathe, Lou. I can call Harry.” His voice wobbled warily. “Just relax.”

Niall’s letting off his pheromones, the calming ones like new laundry that normally Louis would be inhaling like oxygen. They don’t even affect him this time.

Louis pressed his palms to his brow and tried to catch his breath.

“Harry?”

His head snapped up to watch Niall press the phone to his ear.

“You need to come to the flat. Now.” A pause. “Yeah, I  know what you said. Harry. Harry.”

Quiet for half a minute. Louis could hear Harry’s low, scratchy voice prattling on.

“ I _know_ what you said , okay?” Niall snapped. “Harry, Louis needs you to come back.”

Louis shut his eyes.

“Yeah. Yeah. Alright, uh, no. See you in a few.” He hung up, set his phone down, dragged Louis into his arms. Held him tight and stroked his hair, murmuring gentle words of solace against his temple until he wasn’t trembling anymore. “He’s on his way,” Niall assured. “He’ll be here.”

Louis didn’t know if it had been a minute or an hour when the door opened and his head snapped up, eyes drinking in the sight. Harry’s eyes were purple with bags, and his clothes hung off his frame limply. His hair was pulled tight into a bun.

Louis was barely on his feet when Harry had swept him into his arms, holding him endlessly close, bodies pressed together so tightly it nearly hurt. Except there was no  _hurt_. That icy ache had disappeared, replaced by a blissful sort of peace. A settling of his soul.

“I missed you, God,” Louis whimpered against Harry’s neck, scenting him over and over again. “Missed you so much.”

Harry groaned into his hair, soft and dependent. “We’re in a mess, aren’t we?” He whispered.

Louis fisted a hand in his shirtfront, right over his pounding heart.

“A huge fucking mess.”

Harry nuzzled closer.

“Thought so.”

“Maybe we just...” Louis hid his face in Harry’s neck and choked down a whimper. “Roll with it? It has to, like, die down after a bit, right? And we can figure out how to stop it when it’s not so... intense. Right?”

_Say yes. I need you to say yes. I need you to agree with me._

Harry’s hand sweeps calming strokes up and down his side, wide and warm. His thumb bumped over the ridges of his ribs.

“Whatever you need, Louis.” Harry assured. Louis knows with morbid certainty that he’d wanted to say  _Omega_ , and it sends shivers sparking down his spine.

He shut his eyes against Harry’s skin and suffocated the sigh building in his chest.

Harry had gone back to his own room for the night. Louis had told him to. He’d had a reason. Not that he knew it  _now_ , when he was staring restlessly at the ceiling, skin itching with relentless discomfort, hands clenching and unclenching atop his duvet in an effort to keep from ripping it back and tearing the door open. He’d had a reason. A good one, probably.

_ I’m staying here. I can stay here._

It’s true for seven minutes.

Louis blinks, and he’s in front of Harry’s door, hand wrapped around the knob with little recollection of even getting out of bed. And he  _knows _ he should go back to his room, okay, he  _knows_ , but he can smell Harry so much  _stronger _ here, intoxicating in his entirety. So he pushes the door open and steps inside, listening to the gunshot of the clicking lock as he closes it behind him.

Harry is tucked beneath his covers, just a messy mop of hair peeking out, all squished against the pillow, the vague shape of him rising and falling with slow breaths. He smells divine, like a rain soaked forest, and Louis wants to drown in it. In him.

He straddles Harry without deciding to. He’d gone to lift up the blankets and slip in beside him, curl up into his chest, but then he was sitting on Harry’s hips with his hands pulling gently at the duvet, until it reveals Harry’s calm, slumbering expression. His face is flushed in the moonlight, and his irises shift restlessly behind his eyelids.

Louis stroked his palm across the redness in his cheeks and sighed contentedly. That ache beneath his diaphragm had softened once more.

And he thinks he could do this all night, just watch Harry sleep and pet his face, thumbing over the ridge of a cheekbone, watching the flutter of lashes when he dreams. Soaking in this impossible tranquility, this wave of gratification that threatens to suffocate him, brought on by Harry’s scent and Harry’s presence and  _Harry_.

But then he blearily blinks his emerald eyes open and shut, sniffing, and his hands come to hold Louis’ hips through the blanket. “Omega?” He slurs exhaustedly. Another blink, and his eyes stay open this time, squinting as his hands tighten slightly and his vision adjusts to the darkness. “Smell nice. What are you doing?”

Louis ran the pad of his finger across Harry’s mating spot and shrugged lackadaisically. “I didn’t—I couldn’t...” He stumbles, searching for words that won’t manifest. “Can’t sleep, Alpha.”

And it slips out, his lips loose in residual fatigue and the pleasant tingle of Harry calling him  _Omega _ in the dark. But it feels nice in his mouth. In his lungs. Like a flower petal.

Harry pushed back the duvet without another word, maneuvering them both beneath it fluidly. He tucks Louis into his chest, chin hooked over his head.

And Louis, just. Buried his face in Harry’s neck, carelessly inhaling the smell of him with his lips against his scent gland, whimpering: “Scent me?” like some virginal omega.

Harry complies without a word, rubbing his face all along Louis’ throat and shoulders, teeth scraping his Adam’s apple. It drags a squeaky gasp into the coppery darkness. Louis can feel Harry’s smile against his skin.

He lifts his hands to card them through silky curls, breathing out, before he can stop himself, “The only one I’d let near my throat.”

Harry stilled, statuesque save for the manic rising of his chest. Louis knows that the wolf in him, the  _primal _ part of him, is running wild, preening and howling joyfully. That something archaic and purely animal  loves that trust, that raw declaration of safety and protection.

Harry’s tongue darts out to lick his Adam’s apple, just once, and Louis’ omega squeals.

Then Harry is tucking him close again, pressing Louis’ nose into his jugular and stroking the back of his neck with slow, concise strokes.

He’s an inch from sleep when Harry whispers. “I wanted you to come.” It’s so low, Louis almost misses it.

But he hears. And he slings a leg over Harry’s hips, over Alpha’s hips, pulling him ever, ever closer.

Niall lasts all of three seconds after Louis scoots his chair a  _millimeter _ closer to Harry’s at the breakfast table.

“I feel like this is something we should probably talk about.” He announces, fork clattering loudly against his plate. His blue eyes are open and his words are sensible, but Louis can’t help how he shrinks back. He does  _not _ want to have this conversation right now. “Because, like, I personally feel bad for letting Harry in during your heat, which is what started this mess, and I would appreciate a little bit of comfort even if I don’t deserve it. And, like, this isn’t normal. You know this isn’t normal, right? I’ve met tons of omegas who have an alpha get them through one heat and they both can go back to their regular lives, but from what it looks like, the both of you are totally obsessed with each other. And it’s not bad, I guess, I just want to make sure that you at least know what’s going on and have a handle on it. I’m kind of afraid that if any alpha comes near you, Lou, Harry will lose his mind. I’m probably overstepping, but you’re used to it. Love you. Can we talk about this?”

Niall caught his breath as Harry had a staring contest with his eggs and Louis had a staring contest with the side of Harry’s face.

“You don’t have to feel bad for letting him in, Niall.” Louis mumbled finally, gnawing on his lips. Harry’s fingers twitched on his spoon. “I’m lucid enough during heats to know whether I want a certain alpha or not.”

And Harry burns red, bright as a fire, so Louis forges on.

“We know it’s not common, by the way. It’s just... we’re best friends, obviously we’re close. My omega wants to mate him because it connected love and safety with the fact that he’s an alpha. It just thinks we’re mates.” He almost chokes on the word. “We’re figuring it out, but we’ll be fine. If it gets too much to handle we’ll go see a specialist. Harry isn’t going to do anything I ask him not to, as well, so Liam is safe because I  _know _ that’s who you were talking about. We’re just... riding it out.”

Niall’s eyebrows raise, Harry’s spoon knocks into his plate, and Louis blushes down to his toes.

“Oh my god, not like that!” He amended frantically, throwing his hands up. “No, I just mean,” a heavy sigh. “We’re giving in to what we want, I guess? The obsession will die down, and once it does, we’ll keep our distance for a bit until the desire to bond is gone.”

Niall studies them both for a long moment, eyes flicking between their reddened faces and where Harry’s elbow had subconsciously shifted to press against Louis’.

He picks up his spoon to wave it between them. “And what if you are ma—“

“We’re not.” Harry said quickly, and Louis is grateful for it. He wasn’t sure he could’ve listened to Niall say they were mates. He’s... he’s glad Harry took that one.

Could’ve said it a little slower, though. Honestly. Was Louis not, like, a good option?

_ That is not the point._

Niall shrugged noncommittally, eyes narrowed. “Whatever you say.” He stood. “I guess.”

They watched him go silently. Louis’ face still burned.

When Harry stood and took their plates to the sink, neither of them turned to look at each other. Louis just let him go.

Louis called Zayn, and Zayn called Liam, who already knew but still called Harry, and suddenly, all five of them were hanging in Louis, Harry and Niall’s flat, acting like they weren’t ignoring a ridiculously large shift in dynamic.

Zayn had wanted to talk to him since the moment he stepped through the door, and when Zayn wanted something, he usually got it. So when he pulled Louis into his room and shut the door behind them, Louis didn’t protest. Just pushed away the immediate ache of not being in the same room as Harry.

“Babe.” Zayn said after a moment, voice teetering between disbelief and concern.

Louis sank onto his bed. “What’s up, Zaynie?” He asked. All of the mirth had fled his tone at the way Zayn was studying him, close and knowing.

He sat down beside Louis and raised a brow. “Can you give me the whole story? Beginning to end?”

So Louis did. He told him about his sudden heat, about texting Niall, about Harry showing up because he and Niall were already on their way back—which he’d only found out later—and letting Harry in to help him because he’d wanted it so bad. And not in a desperate-omega-in-heat way. He’d wanted it, truly. Which was messy. And as he dove into the even messier second half of it, the needing, the aching, the collapsing onto the kitchen floor and only feeling as though he could breathe again when Harry was at the door, Zayn just nodded and listened. Methodical as he was silent. Louis could almost see the gears turning in his brain.

“Lou,” he began, a full minute after Louis had agitatedly ended his explanation with a frantic  _so now we’re basically bonded because our wolves refuse to let go of each other and neither of us know what to do because we’re not mates but our wolves won’t fucking accept that_ _._ “Are you sure you’re not mates?”

Louis almost reeled backwards. Almost. “What? Of course I’m sure.”

Zayn sighed slowly. “I’m just saying, the first time I was with Liam—“

Louis’ eyes darted down to the mating mark at the juncture of Zayn’s neck and shoulder, pale against his tanned skin. Zayn and Liam had mated almost ten months ago. Louis couldn’t help but feel a shock of jealousy every time he caught a glimpse of the scar, try as he might to quell it. The vast majority of omegas wanted to be mated one day. Of course Louis landed in that majority. Of course he hadn’t even come close yet. Of course he could be a little jealous that his friend got there first. He was mostly happy, anyway.

But he did not want to listen to a Zayn-spiel about _ true mates_ and  _knowing when you know_. Of course someone knew when they knew. That’s the definition of  _knowing_.

“—it was like what you’re describing. Like a very physical ache if I was too far away from him, and I hadn’t even spent a heat with him yet. Yours sounds much more intense, but... I don’t know, mate. I wouldn’t write it off like you are.” Zayn explained, hazel eyes trained unblinkingly on Louis’ face.

“He’s my best friend, Zayn.” He said resolutely.

Zayn cocked a brow. “Then it makes even more sense that it’s intense. You have a pre-existing bond that dates back to childhood. You’re basically part of a pack, if you want to get archaic.”

“I don’t.” Louis snapped before he could stop himself.

Zayn sighed, deep and slow. “Louis, just—“

A knock sounded on the door, quiet and precise.

“Come in.” Louis called gratefully, his heart settling in his chest.

Is it strange that he knew it Harry by the way his knuckles rapped against the wood? By the way he twisted the doorknob?

“Lou?” His voice filtered as the door opened, tentative and unsure. He slid halfway into the room, the palm of his other hand wrapped around the frame, emerald eyes catching on Louis’ face. “Are you okay?”

When Louis glanced down, his feet were pointing at Harry. “Yes, Hazza, I’m alright.” He whispered. The heat of Zayn’s gaze was heavy on his skin.

“You...” Harry shook his head, opened the door a little further. “It felt like you were uneasy.”

Zayn speaks before Louis can. “What do you mean, it felt?” He asks, and Louis stands to cross the room and tuck himself into Harry’s outstretched arms.

“I don’t know.” Harry mumbled distractedly, already removed from the conversation as he buried his face in Louis’ hair. “Just got a weird feeling in my stomach. Like he was restless.” He tipped Louis’ face up and stared into his eyes, searching, brows furrowed. “Were you restless?”

_I’ll explain it later_ _,_ Louis tries to say silently, gaze burning with intensity. “I’m okay.” He murmured instead as he squeezed Harry’s wrists.

Harry’s eyes flashed. He bumped his knuckle under Louis’ jaw, sweet and understanding, and nodded. “Okay.”

“Let’s go eat.” His voice was weak and sent something akin to protectiveness flashing through Harry’s eyes, but when Louis pushed him along by the small of his back, he went.

Louis glanced over his shoulder. Zayn was sitting on his bed, watching the two of them closely, face stony and unreadable, silent as they disappeared through the doorway.

Zayn and Liam don’t stay for much longer after that. Not with the way Liam tries so hard to act like everything is normal and Zayn doesn’t try at all. They leave with good-hearted if not awkward goodbyes, and Niall follows, spouting something rushed and sloppy about grabbing drinks with Shawn. Louis watched the three of them pile in the same cab from the windowsill.

Harry’s arms snaked around his waist, and Louis leaned into him, puffing out a sigh.

“They’re hanging out without us.” Louis mumbled, shutting his eyes as his head fell against Harry’s collarbone.

His chest rumbled against Louis’ spine when he spoke. “Would you rather be out with them?”

Sweet quiet for four heartbeats.

“No.” Louis whispered. “I don’t think so.”

And it should’ve scared him. But it didn’t.

Louis attaches himself to Harry’s back when they go to sleep that night, tucked together in a perfect curve. And Harry hums when Louis noses at the top knob of his spine, down the side of his neck, inhaling and scenting and mumbling little things that neither of them could recite if their lives depended on it.

They fall asleep like that, Louis’ hands pressed flat to Harry’s pounding heart, with Harry’s palms overlapping his.

Their bodies don’t unwind.

Louis is standing in the doorway of the kitchen the next morning, watching Harry flip pancakes on the skillet, when it first hits him. Like a wave of desire. His knees buckle beneath it.

A gasp is all it takes for Harry to dart around, eyes locking immediately on Louis’ flushed face, on the teeth digging into his lower lip.

“You smell...” Louis trailed off and bit back a whimper, shutting his eyes. He swallowed dryly. “Smell like rut.”

Harry took a step back. Then one forward. His pupils swallow the emerald color of his eyes. “What day is it?” He rasped.

“The twenty-seventh.” Six days since Louis’ heat ended. The bite marks on his neck hadn’t even faded entirely yet.

“Tomorrow.” Harry confirmed lowly, and when he raised his hand to rake it through his hair, the wave of scent that poured off him had Louis gripping the countertop so he wouldn’t sink to the floor.

And, like. Okay. Alpha’s basically losing their minds at the smell of an omega in heat? Common. It was one of the reasons they were in this mess in the first place.

But an omega almost collapsing at the smell of an alpha close to rut? Decidedly  _not _ common.

It didn’t happen.

“Lou?” Harry’s eyes were thick with concern as he switched the skillet off and took a step towards Louis’ shaking figure.

He didn’t respond. Just clamped down on the inside of his own cheeks, eyes squeezed shut.

“Lou? What’s going on?” Panic had crept into his tone.

Louis cracked.

“You smell so good, Alpha.” He whined, raising his arms. In a second, Harry was in them, encompassing in his mouth-watering scent, pressing Louis’ spine against the counter as he held him tight against his body. Louis fisted his hand in the front of Harry’s soft, pink sweater, feeling his knees tremble. When his face tipped up and pressed into Harry’s neck, he was powerless to stop it. Useless against the way his lungs expanded, inhaling Harry’s heavenly smell, nails scraping cottony fabric in an effort to hold him closer.

Defenseless against the way slick dampened his insides, all hot and sudden.

Harry stiffened. His arms went painfully tight around Louis’ body. When he inhaled, his chest shuddered. “Louis,” he whispered. “Is that...?”

“Smell so good.” He whined again, and felt a hot blush decorate his face when it was followed by a moan. “Harry, I’m—“

He cuts himself off before he can think to say it.

Harry heaved him up, sitting him on the counter and crowding between his legs. Louis scented him, over and over, reveling in the wide warmth of Harry’s hands holding onto his thighs. Slick wet his pants, but didn’t leak through his joggers. Not yet.

“What do you want to do?” Harry breathed rapidly, nose pressed to Louis’ cheek.

Louis blinked up at him, hands fisting in his shirtfront. “What?”

He blinked back. “I don’t want to assume—“

The thought of Harry spending his rut alone seeps maliciously into his mind. Of Harry whining, knotting into nothing, calling out Louis’ name. Desperate and solitary and hurting.

It’s followed hauntingly by the thought of Harry spending it  not alone. With someone. With someone who  _wasn’t Louis._

“ _ Me _ .” Louis snarled, hooking his knees around Harry’s hips. He watched Harry’s pupils blow wide, dizzying and onyx. And there’s no words left in his mind, nothing to say, to explain. All that’s left is the way he grounds out, “Me.”

Harry’s eyes don’t shift from his, all-encompassing and absolute. Lovely.

Then, he nodded.

“You.”

“You can’t mate me.” Louis whispers to the air that night, tucked up in Harry’s bedsheets and his muscular arms.

He could almost feel Harry’s heartbeat across the inch of bed between them.

“I know.” Harry responded, just as quiet, as if they’d shatter the fragile darkness and drag to light everything they wouldn’t say.

Louis swallowed dryly. His chest hurt, and like telepathic clockwork, Harry’s hand raised to settle warmly atop it. “You’ll want to.”

He’d been sweeping two fingers along Louis’ ribcage, the movement minute. He stopped and started again. “I know.”

“Harry...” Louis licked his lips nervously. “Even  _I _ might want you to. Especially if you send me into premature heat, as improbable as it is. I need you to—“

“Lou. You don’t have to do this if you’re scared.” Harry breathed softly, genuinely, the pad of his thumb pressing gently into the hollow beneath Louis’ ribs.

That snarling possessiveness flooded in once more, akin to what had stricken him in the kitchen except  _more_ , now, so much more.  _Harry wouldn’t spend this alone_ _._ He grappled to wrap his palm around Harry’s.

“ _ Me _ ,” he demanded, and his voice cracked with frantic desperation.

Harry assuaged him sweetly, closing that space between them and curling Louis against his chest. “You.” He assured quietly. One of his hands worked delicately through the tangles in Louis’ hair. “You.”

Louis let the promise wrap around him, warm as Harry’s skin, heavy as the blankets. Let it protect him, drag him to serenity like a rock falling to the floor of a pond.

“I won’t mate you.” Harry swore after a moment. “I swear it.”

He shut his eyes.

“Harry.”

“Louis.”

And there was nothing more to say.

He wakes up in Harry’s bed to low groans against his shoulder and the press of Harry’s cock against his backside.

A glance at the alarm clock. 4:47am. It taunts Louis with it’s crimson severity in the darkness.

“Alpha.” He whispered, and felt slick wet his pants at the way Harry canted his hips forward. “Alpha.” He breathed again at the silence.

It’s like a strike of lightning, the exact moment Harry wakes up. One hand pressed into Louis’ bare stomach, sliding beneath his shirt, teeth scraping under his jaw. The other skidded over the bulge in Louis’ boxers and hooked around the inside of his thigh, tugging it up and separating Louis’ legs. The scent of slick flooded the room, sweet and thick like cherries.

Louis keened, head tossing back, neck bared for Harry’s sharp mouth. “Fuck,” he gasped recklessly. Already lost to the feel of it. The fog of his heat had blurred the tenor of Harry’s touch, the science of their bodies and how they worked together, but  _this_. This, he would remember. This was all for the taking. “Fuck, fuck—“

Slick gushed when Harry licked a stripe up his throat. Louis had never been this wet out of heat, never gagged for it like this, all hot and pleading.

“Smell so fucking good, Omega.” Harry rasped. “My omega.”

Just the enveloping scent of him was enough to have Louis’ cock dripping. “Yours.”

And then Harry’s got him on his hands and knees, fingers tearing at Louis’ boxers and dragging them down his shaky thighs. The touch disappears, and Louis whines, but Harry’s joggers are hitting the floor beside the bed, followed closely by his pants, and just the realization that Louis gets to have him  _inside _ again has him pressing his front to the mattress, back arched. Presenting for his alpha. Submissive and pliant.

A growl ripped out of Harry’s throat, and Louis felt it all the way down to his toes.

Harry pushed one finger in, barely breathing before adding another and sending Louis into a frenzy of heat, face pressed into the pillows. Long, low sounds tumbled out of him messily. Harry’s hand is rough and sure and perfectly not-delicate in the way that Louis never knew he craved and he knows, very suddenly, that he’s going to fall into subspace at some point during this rut. Which has never happened outside of his heat.

It’s sickeningly exhilarating.

But then it just doesn’t matter, because Harry’s got one hand splayed wide on his lower back and he presses forward and  _in _ and his whole chest is blanketing Louis’ spine, lightning zinging out from where they’re connected.

Louis whines. Tosses his head back in reckless abandon, raising one arm to blindly grip at Harry’s shoulder.

“Good omega.” He purred, pulling out and thrusting back in immediately. The slap of his hips is obscene and lovely in the room, broken only by Harry’s labored breath and the moans that quickly turn to screams in Louis’ mouth. It tastes like desire and satisfaction. “Such a sweet, good omega. You were made to fuck, weren’t you?”

Harry took Louis’ hair in a loose fist and pounded into him twice as hard, breaking Louis apart on his cock. It draws gravelly cries from Louis’ throat, seraphic in their excellence, their joy. “ _Alpha_.” He sobbed, and pressed his upper body into the mattress once more, his omega bowing down, presenting yet again. “Alpha,  _god_ , don’t stop,  _Alpha_ ,”

When Harry speaks, the voice isn’t his. It’s something deeper, rougher, something that stokes the fire in Louis’ stomach. “Good boy.” He praised.

And Louis had the audacity to think:  _oh, this is what sex is meant to be._

Harry was sucking marks along his neck, hands slipping around to spread over Louis’ sweat-damp torso. Groans tore from his chest like breaths, necessary to survive. And Harry has a mantra falling from his lips, and endless stream of  _mine mine mine mine _ and Louis can only gasp out  _yours yours yours yours_ in response before he’s coming untouched onto the sheets below him, back arching harshly at the intensity, screaming as his fingers dig into the pillow that smells of his alpha.

And it goes on like that, one touch after another and another, burning Louis from the inside out. Harry’s cock glides inside of him, coated with slick, and it burns so beautifully that Louis cries over it, gasping as tears drop onto the pillow. Harry smells the salt and groans seraphically, lips bumping the top knob of his spine.

“I’m yours, Alpha.” Louis whispers.

Harry knots him with a cry like boulders clashing, and Louis comes again, body absolutely trembling with it, collapsing onto the mattress as Harry splays warmly atop him. He purrs sweet words into Louis’ skin, a gorgeously skipping record of  _Omega _ and  _lovely _ and  _mine _ and  _so good, my good boy._

Harry wraps him up in his arms, turning on his side and grunting at the tug in the place where they’re still attached, and strokes Louis’ tacky, pliant body until they’re both asleep.

Louis thinks Harry gasps out a garbled  _my mate_ towards noon on the second day, when his arse is sore and his mind is numb, skin prickling with the floating sensation that he’s never gotten to experience full force until now. He never finds out, though, because Harry knots and bites down on his shoulder, so close to his bond mark, and Louis comes so hard his vision doesn’t return for almost three minutes.

The way their bodies move is beautiful. Orphic.

Louis’ starting to think there isn’t a better feeling than sex with Harry. Except, maybe, the part after, when they’re locked together and sickeningly satisfied and grinning into each other’s skin, their laughs breathy and exhausted as they are genuine.

And he doesn’t  _let _ himself think  _we should keep doing this_ , but it happens. Then he pushes it away. He’s getting his omega muddled with his actual self. It’s a dangerous game.

He isn’t sure when he and Harry began to play it.

“Oh, god,  _Alpha_.” Louis raked his nails down Harry’s back and left beautiful trails in their wake. “Please, please, oh my  _god_ ,”

“What do you need, Omega?” Harry shifted his hips, ramming ruthlessly into Louis’ prostate. “Tell me what you need, baby.”

“Fuck!” He squeaks and comes for the third time of the hour. Harry gazes at him like he hung the stars. “Give me your knot, Harry,  _please_ , I want to be full of your pups,  _Alpha_ —“

Harry lets out something akin to a roar, head tipped back, jaw dropped bonelessly and eyes squeezed shut as they both imagine Louis, barefoot and swollen-bellied.

“Fuck,  _mine_ , mine,” Harry gasped lowly, voice decimated with arousal, sweat dripping down his neck and pooling between his collarbones. He’s in a frenzy, more turned on than Louis has ever seen him. His green eyes have long since blown black. He thrusts harder each time, working them both towards the edge, mumbling nonsensically about filling Louis with his pups. Louis laid pliant beneath him, just taking it, back arched and legs quivering as he hurtled towards a fourth orgasm.

Harry dipped down, knot catching on Louis’ rim, lips against his ear, and gasped out, “Rest of our life. I want to do this for the rest of our life.”

Louis screamed when he came.

Clenching around Harry, arching off the mattress, jaw slack as he screamed with his eyes shut was all it took for Harry to knot him, groaning desperately. He buried his face in Louis’ neck, panting, licking stripes across his jugular. The feel of his body is so familiar it’s almost dizzying.

And it’s so, so hard for Louis to choke down an eager  _yes_ , a hopeful  _did you mean it_ , a thoughtless  _I love you_.

Instead he stroked Harry’s curls, listening to the echo of them breathing in tandem and drinking in the way Harry mouths at his neck, tongue laving over his pulse point and his bond mark.

And he whispered, when Harry’s knot had finally begun to go down and they were both lax against each other, all tangled and sated, “Me too, you know.”

Harry nodded. “I know.”

So Louis shut his eyes.

Later, when the last of Harry’s rut seems to be working it’s way through him full force, Louis sits on his cock and lets Harry feed him, listening to his laugh between bites, shifting his hips until Harry finally begins to fuck him, but not without making sure he’s eaten his full. It’s nice. Nice to be taken care of.

The next time they wake up, the rut is over.

“You need to tell me if I hurt you, okay? It’s important.”

Louis snorted into his mug, legs swinging over the edge of the counter he’d perched on, cheeks darkening to a splotchy crimson.  _ Hurt him_ , honestly. As if Harry had a bone in his body that could hurt Louis.

“Harry.”

“Lou.”

He sighed, brows furrowing as his head cocked. “Are you really afraid that you hurt me?”

When Harry abandoned the stove to tuck himself between Louis’ knees, Louis set down his tea and slung his arms around Harry’s hunched shoulders, pulling him closer. Their foreheads bumped, breaths warm and shared. Harry smelled like the shower. Like strawberry body wash and lavender shampoo. His hands gripped Louis’ hips beneath his jumper, and then the curve of his bum, soft and delicate.

“What am I going to do with you?” Louis teased sweetly, stroking the miniature curls at the base of Harry’s skull.

“Hide me away in your room.” He sighed. His nose bumped against the underside of Louis’ jaw, lips trailing faintly behind. It felt too natural to be possible. “We can watch Friends and I’ll DoorDash you Big Macs.”

Louis hummed appreciatively. “Sounds magical.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

A laugh rumbled from both of them, vibrating and swirling where their chests were pressed together. “Thank you, baby.” He teased.

Harry shot back with a grinning, “You’re welcome, princess,” scalding palms caressing Louis’ bum as if he could work away the ache that twinged sorely inside him. He flinched when Louis did, and his hands went still. “I was too hard.” He said into Louis’ throat.

Louis swallowed. His heart was beating madly. His mouth was dry. “I liked it.” He whispered, and felt his lungs stall when Harry went still against him.

But his voice was gravelly and heated when he exhaled, “Yeah?”

They were toeing a dangerous line. Louis knew it, and Harry knew it, and it was ethereal.

Louis nodded, and for a moment, they simply breathed each other’s air, bodies clutched close, all warm and familiar. He lulled the sharpened facets of Harry’s mood with a sweeping hand, up and down his spine, brushing away the tense desire they’d manifested and leaving behind only the intoxicating comfort that came from the press of their limbs. Harry went lax in his arms, the weight of him slumped forward, boneless.

Louis loved it. Loved being _needed_ like this, being the only person who Harry wanted.

“You could never hurt me.” Louis said finally. Conversationally. His voice was simple, and Harry hummed. “You were a perfect alpha.”

Another hum. It buzzed against Louis’ skin, dizzyingly low, like the floor of an ocean.

Harry’s hands shifted again, sliding lower, gripping the softness of Louis’ bum. “Have I ever told you how much I love your arse?” He purred against Louis’ earlobe.

Shivers erupted from the crown of his head to his feet. Heat curled like a fire in his stomach. “I don’t think you have.” He managed to shudder out.

“I love your arse.”

“Well, that’s shallow.” Louis teased immediately, inhaling the flowery smell of Harry’s curls, and beneath that, the true scent of him, the wild forest.

“You’re a brat.”

The door opened.

Louis turned to look as Niall stepped through the doorway, nose scrunching up. Harry’s grip didn’t loosen.

“It smells crazy in here.” Niall laughed, dropping his bag on the floor and ducking into the kitchen. He cast a pointed look to the tangled shape of them. “You guys look cozy.”

Louis shrugged, cheeks burning, heart fluttering like a butterfly. “I guess.”

“Well, I’ve been at Zayn and Liam’s for the past three days, and so much has happened.” He began immediately, plopping down at the kitchen table. “Did you know they’re true mates? Like, I knew they were mated, but it’s  _genuine_. Their souls were, like, made for each other. That’s so cool. I didn’t know that before. Also, nuts have such high fat content? It’s crazy.” He watched them for a moment, eyes narrowing. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Louis shrugged, grinning softly. His nails scratched softly along Harry’s back, and his body was warm, and it, just. It felt like home. “Sorry for kicking you out, Nialler.” He said, instead of answering.

Niall made a face. “I’d rather be somewhere else than in this apartment while  _all that_ was happening.” He laughed. “I wish I’d gotten a warning text, though. I was about to open the door and then I nearly fell on my ass from the goddamn  _smell_.”

Harry winced. “Sorry, mate.”

But Niall just laughed, and Louis laughed too, tightening his knees around Harry’s hips comfortingly.

And it was too natural. It was too perfect to laugh with Harry in his arms, to chat with Niall in their kitchen without untangling their bodies, to hold and be held without fear or confusion. Not today. 

“Well, lads,” Niall stood. “Anyone down for a movie?”

Louis grinned.

Niall lasted about seven minutes after Ed texted, halfway through the movie, before he was hightailing out the doorway, apologizing without looking remotely apologetic and leaving Harry and Louis by themselves.

It wasn’t unusual, really. Not at this point. Between Louis’ heat, Harry’s rut, and all the subsequent nights they’d spent tangled together, talking to the ceiling, it was almost dizzyingly effortless to just exist together. Louis had stopped paying attention to the movie ages ago, mind wandering aimlessly through thoughts, head tipped back against the armrest. Harry was splayed across him, head pillowed on his chest, eyes shut even though Louis knew he wasn’t sleeping. Basking, really. Catlike in his lethargy. If there was a place to sprawl out and lay, Harry always found it.

It was useless for Louis to pretend he wasn’t glad the place was now atop his body.

Eventually, Louis needed a shower.

Harry wasn’t exactly fond of the idea. Especially since it involved actually letting Louis go.

“You’re not moving. I literally couldn’t care less.” He snuggled closer, nose against Louis’ pulse, inhaling. “I think you smell perfect.”

“I’m gross, Harry.” Louis whined. He pouted into Harry’s curls and huffed.

But Harry just  _harrumphed _ and rolled his eyes, pinching Louis’ side. “Quite literally impossible.” He said briefly.

“Harry.”

“Louis.”

“I  _have _ to shower, Hazza.” Louis demanded, pushing at Harry’s shoulders halfheartedly. They both knew he couldn’t move Harry, and wouldn’t if he could. It was in the action of it.

Harry groaned and burrowed deeper into Louis’ neck, arms tightening, brows drawing together against his skin. “No.” He moaned pleadingly.

“Yes.” Louis sighed back. He shoved away the desire to give in, to stay put, to fall asleep. Maybe he didn’t want to let go. Be separated. It should have worried him, but it had been too good of a day to be worried about anything.

“Please no?” Harry offered, voice rising innocently.

Louis stroked up and down his spine. He was saying it before he’d even finished thinking.

“You could come, if you want.”

And Harry sort of shuffled, heart kicking to life against Louis’ chest, breath stalling for a second too long. Then he had leaned back to look into Louis’ face. His eyes were flashing.

“Are you being serious?” He asked slowly, as if afraid to let himself believe it wasn’t a joke. A slender hand brushed his hair from his face, and Louis tracked the movement obsessively.

Was he?

“Yeah.” He said plainly. “You’ve literally fucked me for days straight before. I don’t think a shower is going to suddenly change our relationship.”

Harry shrugged, rising to his knees, smirking that devilish smirk like he knew something Louis didn’t. “Okay.”

Louis raised his arms up, adopting his best pleading look. “Carry me?”

And he hadn’t really expected Harry to, but he was swept off the soft sofa before he could even yelp, cradled in his muscled arms, held close to his sunshine-warm chest. Harry’s smirk had evolved into a self-righteous smile, smug at the look on Louis’ face. He pushed the bathroom door open with his hip and set Louis down on shaky feet.

“Steady, princess.” Harry murmured.

Which. Like. Didn’t fucking help with the whole  _steady _ thing, anyway.

“You are not allowed to casually call me that, Styles.” Louis pointed out, leaning against the counter and applauding himself at the lack of quiver in his voice. Harry snorted as he turned on the shower. “I’m serious. I’ll get too used to it and then the boys will think it’s something I’m actually into.”

Harry cast a pointed look to his legs, which had only just stopped shuddering, and fisted the hem of Louis’ cotton shirt. “Whatever you say.” He assuaged, grinning. He tugged Louis’ top gently from his torso and dropped it on the tiles.

When goosebumps coated Louis’ skin, he pretended he didn’t notice. Harry did too.

Louis stepped into the shower after stripping the rest of his clothes from his body and leaving them beside his discarded shirt. The water is summery in it’s warmth. He doesn’t look as Harry undresses, caught under the ruse of wetting his hair and adjusting the temperature even though it’s utterly perfect, already. But he can’t really ignore when Harry slips in beside him, sliding the fogged glass door shut, radiating intoxicating heat against Louis’ spine.

The last time they were in this bathroom at the same time, Harry was fucking him against the shower wall.

And Louis was  _about _ to start panicking, body wracked with fear and the echoing call of  _this wasn’t a good idea_ _,_ but Harry’s wet hands bumped into his hips and wrapped around them, holding him close under the spray. And it’s just nice again. Easy.

“Y’okay?” Harry’s lips brushed his ear, damp hair tickling the side of Louis’ face, silky and curling.

A grin. “Yeah.” Louis laid his palm over Harry’s and leaned into his body. “I’m okay.”

This isn’t the first time they’ve showered together. Obviously, there was the time during Louis’ heat, and then there were the nights when Louis came home  _plastered _ and asked Harry to stay in the bathroom because he didn’t want to be alone. And because Harry was afraid he’d pass out and drown.

This time just  _feels _ different.

It’s not sexual, not really, even though their damp skin is sliding together with every minute shift and Louis can taste the sparks in his mouth. It’s just  _intimate_. Harry makes him feel  _safe_. And they’re giggling and talking and Harry was tipping Louis’ head back so he wouldn’t get soap in his eyes when he washed Louis’ hair for him.

“Do you think it’s gonna go away?” Louis whispered, heart in his throat, Harry’s lean fingers in his dripping locks.

He felt the sigh before he heard it, pressed against his spine, coupled with the trundle of Harry’s hands on his scalp. “I don’t know, Lou.”

“Haz.”

Louis turned in his arms, palms landing on his chest and swiping away a constellation of glittering water droplets. He blinked up through his wet eyelashes. Harry’s heart was unfairly even beneath his palm.

The words caught in his throat, jabbed at his trachea. Abandoned him.

“Are we going to be okay after this?” He took a breath. “Are we still going to be best friends?”

_What if I want you to say no?_

_ What if I think it could be more? _

Harry’s brows drew together in incredulous confusion. He looked unfairly beautiful, green eyes glittering, a myriad of droplets decorating his cheeks, wet hair curling against his tanned brow. Angelic. “Of course, Lou, why would you even ask that?” He breathed.

And Louis wanted to tell him. Truly, deeply, with the ache and pull that manifested harshly behind his ribs and tugged him forward, he wanted to tell him.

Instead, he shrugged and rinsed the last of the conditioner from his hair. His hands shook. “I don’t know. Maybe I do something weird during sex and you couldn’t get over it.”

Harry barked a laugh, head tipping back, and Louis catalogued the path of water dripping down the column of his throat. “Jesus, Lou.” He shook his dark head through a grin. “You don’t do anything weird during sex, don’t worry.”

Louis cocked a brow. “Nothing?” His lips pursed. “I’m that bland, am I?”

“Not at all.”

“You just said I do nothing of interest during sex.”

“That is decidedly not what I said.”

“Then what’s hot about me in bed?”

“You get really worked up when you’re about to come.”

Louis stopped breathing.

Fuck.

And it wasn’t the fact that Harry had even noticed that, or that he thought it was hot. It was the way he’d answered, without hesitation, as if he’d thought through everything Louis did during sex and decided  _yes, this one, it’s the best.  I like how he freaks out over my cock_ _._ The fact that he’d known.

Louis still hadn’t inhaled.

He mustered a rather weak, “Oh?” And grabbed the loofa from it’s hook, lathering it up with soap.

Harry took it from his hands, emerald eyes glimmering. He ran it gently over Louis’ body, starting at his shoulders, and Louis actually wanted to get on his knees and expose his neck for Harry to sink his teeth into. Shower and all. “Mmhmm.” Harry hummed, nodding calmly. “It’s hot. Your legs are shaking, your breathing gets all heavy, eyes in the back of your head. And, it’s like...  _I _ did that to you. It’s a nice reassurance.” He lathered Louis’ arm, wrist between his fingers, lifting it up. Manipulating Louis’ body however he wanted it to go. Controlling him, gentle and sure. “And then, if I get you to three, that’s when you start screaming. Totally lost.”

It was like suffocating a fire with oil, trying to quell the burn in Louis’ chest. Like bailing water from a boat with paper buckets.

“Careful,” Louis warned teasingly, not finding it in him to keep his voice from wavering. “At least I don’t go all post-verbal and start growling about how pretty you are.” He murmured, cupping water in his hand and throwing it in Harry’s face.

Harry snatched at his wrist. Held it tightly in his scalding hand, immobile, smirk unshaken on his face. “You  _are _ pretty.”

Louis swallowed sharply and turned around as Harry lathered up his back. “I could make fun of you, too, you know.”

“I wasn’t making fun of you.”

“You bite.”

“Does it turn you on?”

_Yes_.

“Shut up.” Louis snapped, and Harry burst into delighted laughter, abandoning the loofa to wrap his arms around Louis’ waist and plaster their soapy skin together. “You’re a brat.” His hands landed atop Harry’s, flat on his stomach. It sent butterflies sparking beneath his skin, and then, “I like when you touch my stomach.”

Because this was a thing they did now. Apparently.

Harry’s voice was casual when he spoke, simple and fond. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged around Harry’s arms. “Makes me feel wanted, I guess.”

Harry fell quiet, nose pressed against Louis’ mating spot, eyes shut contentedly.

“I do want you, by the way.” He said finally.

Louis nodded. “I know. Wanna know how?”

“How?”

“Because you’re  _always _ touching my stomach.”

Harry burst into laughter and picked up the loofa.

When Harry was done drying him off and had wrapped him in a fluffy towel, he kissed Louis’ forehead, barely a brush of warm lips, and Louis’ pulse spiked to the heavens.

He also patted Louis’ bum when he turned to walk out, so Louis chucked the toothpaste square at his face.

Some things never changed.

They’re lying in bed barely an hour later, giggling as they listen to Niall drunkenly trundle through the apartment and knock his knees into every table they have. Their skin still smells like the shower, and Louis feels like he could  _live _ here, tangled up in Harry’s arms and his bedsheets, stifling his laughter against his hand, the stars doing cartwheels in the ebony sky outside the window.

“Harry,” Louis whispered through a smile, when the grunts and bangs outside the door had fallen silent. Harry just hummed, so he went on. “What do I smell like?”

“Perfection.” He deadpanned immediately, one of his hands slipping down to clutch at Louis’ thigh. His chest almost burns against Louis’ spine, in the loveliest of ways.

“I was being serious.”

“You think I wasn’t?”

“Harry!” Louis laughed, reaching back a blind hand to swat at Harry’s head. Harry caught it and returned it to the mattress. “Honestly, what do I smell like?”

Harry pressed his nose against Louis’ scent gland, inhaling, even though they both knew he didn’t need a reminder. And then, “Something citrus-y. Sort of... orangish? And chocolate.”

“Milk chocolate?”

“No.” He shook his head, and it jostled Louis’ shoulder, but he still grinned. “Dark chocolate.”

Louis stared at the ceiling, playing with Harry’s fingers where they were sprawled over his stomach, gnawing on his lower lip. “You really think I smell perfect?”

Harry lifted himself onto one elbow, hovering over Louis’ body, and made a face when Louis twisted to look at him. “What do you think?”

A shrug. “I mean, other alphas have told me I smell good before—“ Harry let out a growl, and he smirked. “But I sort of thought they were just saying that to get me in bed.”

Harry shook his head. “You’re the best smelling omega I’ve ever met.” He breathed, lying down again, the whole of his body slotted warmly against Louis’. It was a moment before he spoke again, rumbling through his chest and sparking at Louis’ nerve endings. “Also, I’d love to get the names of those alphas so I can hunt them down.”

Louis snorted. “Possessive.” He teased.

Harry’s teeth scraped the vein at his throat, and his mouth snapped shut. “Of you? Of course.”

“You could kill a few of them.” Louis rasped suddenly, voice darkening, eyes sliding closed at the flooding memories of looming alphas in dark bars. Hands on his wrists and thighs before someone had come to save him. Usually Liam.

Harry stilled. “Lou—“

“Thank god for your mother.” He cut him off, sighing off the bitter thoughts, fingertips trailing feather-light over the tendons of Harry’s hands. “She raised you very well.”

And Harry was, like,  _vibrating _ now, arms tightening around Louis’ waist, jaw clenched against his shoulder. “I can’t  _fucking _ believe—“

“It’s okay.” Louis said softly. Pheromones poured off his skin, sweet and placating, and he extended his neck for Harry to scent, knowing it would comfort him. Both of them, probably.

Harry pressed his face into Louis’ throat. “It’s not.”

Louis just fell silent.

It felt like hours before Harry spoke again, but it could have only been minutes. Maybe less than that. “Louis,” He breathed, mouth against Louis’ ear.

“Mm?”

“Did I...” his throat bobbed against the back of Louis’ head. “During your heat, I’m... was it—was it non-consensual? Did I...?”

Louis’ heart stopped beating.

“Harry.” He breathed, in heartbroken awe. He spun in the circle of his arms to touch Harry’s face, thumb pressed against his lips, eyes locked together. Harry’s gaze was filled to overflowing with fear and painted silver in the moonlight. “Harry,” he said again. His words struggled around a dry swallow, a lump in his throat. “You could never—“

“Your heat, though, Lou.” He whispered, broken, ragged. “It changes the way you think, it does. I don’t want to be like one of those alphas who hurt you. And I...” his voice broke. “If I raped you, Louis—“

His still heart shattered.

His Harry. His poor Harry.

The more Louis searched for words, the fewer there were. What was he to say? How could he possibly explain this away when the very concept of Harry thinking he’d forced himself on Louis broke his heart? He could hardly breathe around it. But with every moment that passed, Harry’s face fell whiter, limbs locking in terrified tension, and Louis ended up spitting out: “Why did you come to my door?”

“You were asking for me.” Harry murmured immediately. His cheeks went from white to crimson in the moonlight. “Kept saying my name.”

“You didn’t—“ Louis choked on the word. “You didn’t rape me. I  _wanted _ you. I was calling out for you. For my alpha.” He took a shaky breath, watching Harry mirror him, and stroked his thumb over the cliff of his cheekbone. “How could you ever think...?”

Harry shrugged gracelessly, eyes fixated on the rumpled sheets beneath his arm, even when Louis tried to catch his gaze. “I read the news. I hear the stories. I have stupid, disgusting instincts that could seriously hurt you and I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.” He raised a hand, stroked it across Louis’ cheek. Soft as a feather. “I’d hate myself.”

And Louis, just. He gave in. Just for a little while. For tonight.

“You are my alpha, Harry. My alpha. I didn’t know I needed you, but my omega did. If I had asked you to go away, you would’ve.” He cradled Harry’s face. “I  _know _ you would’ve. But I didn’t want you to, because you’re my alpha. And I’m your omega. I’m all yours.”

Harry’s eyes slid shut, a breath bleeding out of his lungs like a deflating balloon. “So I didn’t—“

“Never.” Louis’ hand slid around the back of his neck. “Never.”

And it was impossible to not lean forward and kiss Harry. To not press their mouths together, legs tangled, shuddering at the feel of hands splayed across his spine. To not sink into the warmth of him, eyes sliding shut, and just  _move _ as one. Safe and trusting. Louis couldn’t have refrained, even if he wanted to.

It took a few moments too long for Louis to realize they’d never kissed before. It had always crossed some invisible line, broken some strict rule. At some unspecified point, they’d silently agreed that it colored outside the boundaries of whatever they’d stumbled into.

At some other point, they’d silently stopped caring.

And it was strange to realize they were playing this game backwards once more. They’d fucked on the bedroom floor, and against a wall, and bent over a desk. But they hadn’t kissed until tonight. With only them and the silver moonlight to bear witness. 

Harry kissed nice. His head was tilted the opposite way of Louis’, so they’re mouths were truly slanted together, and his slick tongue was darting across Louis’ lower lip but never dipping into his mouth. Teasing. He kissed like an alpha with all the time in the world. He kissed the way he’d fucked Louis during heat, when he’d had his right mind. He tasted like rain and candy, and their knees knocked together but Harry just grinned, and Louis never wanted to  _stop_. Wasn’t sure he could.

Harry’s hand had slid up his spine and cradled the back of his neck when Louis pulled away. His eyes were half-lidded but fond, relaxed as they hadn’t been before. “That was nice.” He said simply, a little jesting but mostly genuine.

Louis curled his hands against his chest and tucked himself into Harry’s warm body, head beneath his chin, nose on his collarbone. “You’re a twat.” He huffed when Harry laughed against his temple and held him close enough to grip his own elbows around Louis’ body. “An utter shit.”

Harry dipped his head to scent him again, the room dancing with their mixing scent and the buzz of their laughter. It was normal. It made sense. “Go to bed.” He whispered.

Louis tipped his face up, hiding in Harry’s jaw, and complied.

They don’t really talk about it, in the morning. Maybe because it doesn’t  _feel _ like something they _need_ to talk about. Because it just  _fit_.

Maybe they’ve always fit.

Three days later, Louis wakes up horny.

Not, like,  _dripping-with-slick, needy-in-heat_ horny. Just like he’d enjoy having sex today. Really enjoy it.

The problem is he’s not  getting any sex. He can’t go out and find an alpha, and even if he could, he can’t fathom the idea of even being  close to anyone who isn’t Harry. But he can’t actually, like,  _fuck _Harry, because that’s not how they are. So he’s left confused and extremely frustrated, a crackling fire growing low in his gut that’s impossible to ignore and impossible to deal with.

Of course he’s grumpy.

He’d yelled at Harry a few minutes before for leaving the kettle on and was now stewing moodily on the couch, arms crossed, glaring blankly at the vibrant telly. Niall had left an hour past, steering clear of the angered pheromones rolling off Louis’ skin and mumbling some half-baked excuse about going to Liam and Zayn’s. Louis wasn’t really paying attention.

He really needed to get off.

It was the third time that he’d shuffled away from Harry’s warmth on the cushions that Harry finally huffed and spoke.

“What’s wrong?”

Louis crossed his arms and tucked his knees against his chest. “Nothing.”

“Well, that’s a lie.” Harry sighed, promptly yanking Louis across the empty space between them. He grabbed his face softly between his palms. “Tell me.”

Being this close to Harry’s scent was getting him hard.

“Hazza,” Louis groaned, pushing lightly at his chest, not enough to convince either of them that he really wanted to be let go.

Harry’s head dipped down and tucked into the juncture of Louis’ neck and shoulder, scenting him, mixing them together until all of Louis’ thoughts trundled messily around his head, swimming unintelligibly.

He just wanted to drop to his knees and open his mouth.

“Tell me, baby.”

Louis whined.

It was like a chemical reaction, the way Harry leaned backwards and looked down into Louis’ lap, all at once, hands tightening on his shoulders. Louis’ nerve endings itched and sparked, restless beneath his starved skin, and his lungs contracted until he could barely inhale. His mind spun.

And then Harry smirked.

He gripped Louis’ bum in his hands and heaved him into his lap, palms scaldingly warm through the thin fabric of Louis’ joggers. Louis was straddling his thigh, now, staring down into Harry’s blown-out eyes, and his hard cock was pressed against Harry’s hip and he probably could’ve passed out if all of the blood in his body wasn’t absolutely  zinging . He couldn’t breathe.

“Is that it, then?” Harry breathed, tilting his dark head. One of his hands raised to cup Louis’ flushed cheek. Stroke over the cliff of his splotchy cheekbone. “You want to get off?”

With the other hand, he ground Louis’ hips into his thigh.

He spoke through Louis’ moan, brow arched dangerously, eyes twinkling as he studied Louis’ rapidly darkening face. “You’ve been such a whiny brat all day, for what? Because you needed something to grind up against?” He leaned forward and planted a kiss on Louis’ Adam’s apple. “You should’ve just asked me, babydoll. I’m always here for you. Even when you’re so fucking needy.”

“ _ Harry _ ,” Louis moaned and tipped his head back, eyes falling shut as his hips moved unevenly over Harry’s thigh, desperate but unsure. “ Hazza .”

“I think it’s kind of hot, you know.” Harry murmured, voice unaffected even when Louis felt the press of his hard cock on his hip. “You’re hot all by yourself. You can ride my thigh, baby, know you need to. Wanna watch you. Come on, sweetheart, grind against me.”

Harry accentuates his statement by rolling his thigh  _up _ and Louis’ hips  _down _ at the same moment, absolutely fucking  _grinding _ them together, and the friction is almost enough to spark a fire. Louis’ entire torso fell limp, slumping against Harry’s shoulder as he groaned out.

“God, fucking love the sounds you make.” Harry purred in his ear as Louis’ hips picked up a steady rhythm, and he couldn’t so much as shift without mewling. “All squeaky and short like you’re embarrassed of them. Probably are. Probably don’t even know how hot they get me. Especially when you start screaming, Christ, you know I love that.”

Louis whimpered a weak, “ _ Harry _ .” as his breath hitched, body moving faster, hands steadying himself on Harry’s shoulders.

“Good omega.” Harry purred, petting from his shoulder blades to his ass, smiling smugly. “You’re getting close. I can smell your slick.”

And Louis really _was_ dripping, absolutely soaking through his boxers. His eyes squeezed shut as he tucked his damp face into Harry’s neck, whining and moaning, breaths achingly uneven in his flowering lungs. The coil in his stomach tightened, winding painfully, and Harry took a handful of his arse and squeezed.

God, this felt so fucking  _filthy_. Louis was obsessed with it.

“You’re going to come, aren’t you, Omega?” He laved his tongue over the pulse at the base of Louis’ throat and hummed until it vibrated both their chests. “You look so fucking hot, Lou, I can’t even describe it. Can’t believe you’ve been aching all day. My baby. You need to come, Lou? You can, love, come for me.”

The coil snapped.

“Fuck, Alpha, I’m coming,  _Harry_ ,” Louis whimpered, hips jerking sporadically as his vision sparked white. Harry caught him when he began to list to the side, holding him steady, rocking him slowly through his orgasm with his mouth against his jaw.

“That’s it.” He whispered when Louis settled back into his own body from where he’d been floating. His hands were splayed wide and warm across Louis’ back, and his lips moved against his shoulder as he spoke. “There you go. Did so good for me, you know. Pretty thing.”

Louis couldn’t find the energy to present the fact that this broke  so many of their unspoken rules. All he could do was slump against Harry and shut his eyes, sighing into his neck, sinking into the warm feeling of a heart beating against his.

Louis wakes up in fresh boxers with Harry in bed beside him. He turned on his side, gazing up into Harry’s soft face, and he’s not sleeping because Louis  _knows _ what his breath sounds like when he’s sleeping and it’s not this, but they’re both content to bask in the silence. To just exist. So Louis throws a leg over Harry’s lower stomach, reveling in the lack of uncomfortable heat that had brewed in his gut all day, and when Harry’s arm comes back around him and tucks him close, he shuts his eyes.

He doesn’t feel the need to talk about earlier.

_Obviously_ , he manages to think to himself before sleep makes it’s grab again.  _Why would you be worried about breaking rules when neither of you cared about them in the first place?_

He doesn’t have time to answer himself before he’s unconscious.

Louis gets himself off on Harry’s thigh two more times in the following week. The first time was because he was kind of horny. The second time was just for fun. And because Harry looked nice that day.

They last time they kissed was the day after Harry’s rut. They don’t again.

“Can we go out tonight?”

Harry shifted Louis on his lap and reclined into the couch cushions. It was sometime around midday, lazy and slow, and the sun streamed lethargically through the ajar windows. Louis wasn’t even dressed; he was only wearing boxers and one of Harry’s ratty band tees.

“Go out, like, you and me? Or go out like everyone?” He asked with his mouth against Louis’ neck.

Louis shrugged. “Everyone. Make it a night. Hit a club and dance our feet off.”

“As long as you’re not dancing with anyone but me.” Harry purred, arms tightening. Louis grinned. “You’re all mine.”

Which, yeah, Louis agreed.

But he still liked to tease.

“Possessive, are we?” He giggled and squirmed his hips against Harry’s.

“Are you mine?” Harry went on, completely ignoring the question and the way Louis’ arse was pressed against him.

Louis shifted on Harry’s lap and snorted out a sarcastic, “Sure, Daddy.”

They both stilled, Harry with eyes wide, Louis grinning in disbelief.

He squirmed against the hardness beneath his bum. “You’re fucking kidding me.” He laughed, spinning around accusingly. Harry’s face was a fiery shade of red. When Louis wiggled again, his hands darted up to cling to his hips, and Louis’ jaw dropped in delight. “You’re fucking kidding me!”

“ _ Lou _ .” Harry whined embarrassedly, ducking his red face and shutting his eyes.

“Damn.” Louis pressed back in awe. “Full boner from just one word. That’s  _powerful_.” He smirked. “I could  _fuck you up_ in public.”

“It’s because you called me alpha!” Harry attested, almost keening. “And you’re in my lap. It wasn’t... because of, you know.  _That_.” He mumbled his way to silence, face positively scarlet.

Louis spun around, straddling Harry’s hips, arms draping around his shoulders. “Promise, Daddy?” He breathed, and when he gazed up through his lashes innocently, Harry’s breath hitched. Something manic and animalistic danced in his eyes. “ _Promise _ you don’t think I’m your baby? Daddy wouldn’t lie to his baby, would he?”

“Lou.” Harry ground, and his voice was like gravel, all torn up in his throat, decimated in pleading desperation. “Lou, stop.”

“Stop?” Louis pouted. Ran his hand down Harry’s muscled bicep, swiveling his hips just enough to let Harry feel the press of his arse against his furiously hard cock. “Sorry, Daddy. I didn’t mean to disobey you. I can be a good girl.”

One moment, he was sat atop Harry’s thighs, grinning cheekily as he teased and Harry grew progressively darker.

The next, he was on his back, pinned to the couch by Harry’s massive palms, panting. Harry’s body pressed against his, hovering possessively. His eyes had blackened, and his lips were parted.

The air swept out of Louis’ lungs and took his teasing smile with it. Stole away all semblance of flippant mockery. A second ago, it had been a joke. Some ragged attempt to embarrass Harry and drill blackmail-worthy information out of him.

Now it was  _this_.

In all the times Louis had gotten himself off on Harry’s thighs, Harry had never taken care of himself after. Never showed so much as an inclination that he needed the release.

Louis was slick.

“You can’t do that.” Harry rasped, fingers flexing around Louis’ pliant wrists. His lips were parted and wet and  _red_. “You can’t fucking do that to me, Lou, Jesus.”

He wondered if Harry was going to fuck him again.

_That _ was a rule. One that truly couldn’t be broken. Louis wasn’t really sure why, but he knew that it was a line.  _The _ line, one they’ve drawn in the sand, a definitive boundary.

But, like.

Yes, it’s dark. Definitive. It’s also  _thin_. Slim.

Louis isn’t even surprised by the fact that he wants to cross it.

He tilted his head. Marveled at the fact that he had yet to struggle against Harry’s hold on his wrists. That he didn’t want to. “Why?”

Harry shook his head. “You know why.” He shuddered, pearly teeth biting into the pink expanse of his lower lip, chest heaving. Louis can see constellations dancing in his darkened eyes.

Does he know anymore?

“Harry.” He mumbled, brows drawing together as they studied each other. Harry’s face was flushed, and he was sure his own mirrored it. There’s a million things he  _could_ say, and only one he does. “I’m not scared.”

Harry’s breath rattled around his lungs when he inhaled; Louis could hear it, clanging against his edges. His fingers flexed again.

“Neither am I.”

The worst and most enamoring faction of it is that they should be. They shouldn’t be  _okay _ with this. They  _should be_ afraid.

Louis can’t find it in himself.

He thinks he wants Harry to kiss him again.

Harry doesn’t. Instead, he lifts himself off Louis’ body and walks away, away, away, abandoning him as he disappears down the hallway. His bedroom door thumps closed behind him. The lock clicks. And Louis really is alone, now, chest heaving like the ocean as he stares at the swirling ceiling, tugged somewhere past halfway between grinning and crying. His mouth tastes of sand, but all he smells is Harry, woodsy and clinging to his skin like wet fabric. It’s as animalistic as it is paradisiacal. He’s sick with it.

He dips a hand into his trousers and fucks into his own hand, rough and desperate, smothering the echo of Harry’s name against his palm as he comes.

It doesn’t really fix much.

“Why won’t you just admit you’re mates?” Niall blurts when Harry has disappeared into the kitchen to wash the dishes. Their dramatic separation had only lasted little over an hour, and then Harry was tiptoeing back out of his room, cheeks only a little flushed, and dropping his head in Louis’ lap until Louis played with his hair. It’s all normal again. Or, whatever  _this _ normal is. If there was a change in dynamic, an unspoken tension lingering in the air, Louis couldn’t feel it.

Niall could, apparently.

Louis jolted and made a face at him, heart punching angrily at his solar plexus and stealing the air from his lungs in a great cyclone. “Um, what the hell, Niall?” He snapped. “We’re not.”

“You’re fucking daft, is what you are.” Niall said to the bottom of his glass, shaking his head. “You better be being safe.”

Louis almost chokes. “Being safe, Niall, we don’t even—“

“I know  _that._ ” He was waved off with a flippant hand, which is even more embarrassing. “But uncertain situations can be very confusing and cumbersome to omegas, especially when they involve alphas. You need to watch out for yourself, Lou. Keep an eye on your own decisions.”

“Fucking  _excuse _ me,” Louis hissed sharply, fire brewing in his gut and sparking at his friend. “I’m an adult, in case you’ve forgotten—“

“An adult with little sense of self-preservation.” Niall huffed, and, wow, they really weren’t holding back. Louis’ tongue was heavy like cotton in his mouth, uncomfortably numb. “I’m not trying to be harsh, this is just the only way you listen. You’re always taking care of everyone, Louis.” He sighed again, shaking his head at his now-empty glass. “You act like you’re not, but you are. It’s what you do. But who’s taking care of you?”

“I don’t  _need _ to be taken care of.” Louis said softly, head tipped down.

“Yeah, but  _are _ you being taking care of?”

He fell silent.

“Just because you don’t need to be doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be.” Niall went on, voice softening with every word. And then, solemnly, “I’m worried about you.”

Louis stared at his limp hands, wrists sparking briefly with the memory of Harry’s palms wrapped around them. His chest hurt. Ached, as if a spear had crashed into him from one side and was poking out the other.

Niall knew he wasn’t mad at him. Louis made sure of that before he stood from the couch and walked silently through the hall, stumbling blindly into his room and closing the door behind him. He wiped away a rogue, numb tear and began to yank the clothes out of his closet and hamper, inhaling each of them closely, chucking ones that weren’t right and arranging the ones that were in a painfully specific manner across his mattress.

It wasn’t until he was curled in the midst of them, eyes shut, fists tucked comfortably beneath his chin that he realized.

All of the clothes in the nest were Harry’s.

They don’t go out that night.

The next night, however.

After Louis’ tentative mention of craving to go out, Niall had officially latched onto the idea and cajoled Liam and Zayn into joining. He didn’t mention the conversation the day before, just yanked the blanket off of Louis’ lap—and subsequently Harry’s—and announced that they were going clubbing tonight. No ifs, ands, or buts, no questions about it. It was happening.

Which is how Louis found himself sandwiched in a round booth between Harry and Zayn, giggling around the cold rim of a shot glass, well past halfway to drunk.

The club pulses rhythmically, the floor vibrating with every thump of the bass, and lights flash blue and green over the swarming, writhing bodies. Louis can see the sound waves in the air, wavy and bright. Harry’s arm is slung lazily over his shoulders, and there’s a lazy, drunken smile dancing on his red mouth, ethereal against the background of his angelic face. He keeps looking over at Louis, grinning. His alcohol-shaded eyes will twinkle delightedly, and Louis will feel it in the marrow of his bones, specific and delicate. Verklempt, almost. In a lovely sort of way.

The world blurs in and out of focus as Niall plays quarters with Liam and Zayn and Louis clutches Harry’s face in his palm.

“Precious baby.” He mumbled inarticulately. “You’re my baby.”

Harry huffed, sloppy and pouting. “I am not.”

“You are, though.” Louis grinned, cheeky and wide, and squeezed Harry’s face. “My baby. Admit it.”

And he could see that Harry was trying to look grumpy, to frown and grumble passive-aggressively until Louis dropped the subject, but he was holding back a smile. The kind that made his dimples flicker.

And he couldn’t keep himself from smirking when he mumbled, “I’m your baby.”

“Good.” Louis listed forward to plant a smacking kiss on his tanned cheek, reveling in the feel of Harry’s smooth skin under his lips, and then pushed at his shoulder. “I want to dance, move your butt.”

Harry  _actually _ pouted now, childlike in his drunkenness, groaning a little. “I don’t want to dance.”

Louis tried to shrug, but it came out more as an uncoordinated shake. “Who said you had to go with me?”

He doesn’t have time to analyze the disappointed flash that sounds off in Harry’s twinkling gaze, because by the time he even realized it’d occurred, he was already on the dance floor.

Louis liked dancing. Liked moving to the beat of music, even autotune-heavy, remixed versions of popular songs like the ones that are playing now. He likes loses himself to it, sinking into the wild abandon, eyes shut and cells thrumming along with the guitar, the drums.

Louis liked showing off his arse.

He hopes Harry is watching.

The songs bleed in and out. Someone dances into his arms and then away from them, and all Louis remembers is that they smelled like buttercream. Niall joins him at one point, absolutely horrifying with his own moves but so much fun that Louis doesn’t care. He lets himself be spun and Irish-danced around until Niall is mumbling some inarticulate jumble about ‘ _ gotta throw up _ ’ and he, too, is gone.

When the body presses against Louis’ spine, hands tight on his hips and face ducked into his shoulder, his blood turns to icy sludge in his veins.

This is very, very wrong.

He spun to face the strange alpha holding him, who smells like a volcanic ocean and coconut trees, recoiling into himself. The man’s face isn’t entirely discernible under the low lights and Louis’ own intoxication, now mingled with discomfort, but he can make out the leering smile and the too-large hands. They hover closely to his hips. Their lingering touch almost burns.

“No need to panic, baby. I can protect you.” He promised, eyes—brown? Maybe blue?—shifting hungrily over Louis’ paling face. His voice is grating, too nasally for his brick-like body, his broad shoulders and squarish head.

Louis shook his head, skin too tight over his bones, mouth thick with fear and alcohol. “I have an alpha.” He gasped around the nausea swirling sickeningly in his gut. This is fundamentally, atomically  _wrong._

The only alpha who touches him is Harry.

The man raised a brow. Glanced around the pulsating club slowly, as if proving a point. “I don’t see him, little bird.” He took a step forward, crowding into Louis’ body, dark eyes—definitely brown, and not the nice kind—glimmering with want. “Don’t see a mating mark on your neck, either.” He inhaled. “You smell good, pet.”

His hand settled on Louis’ hip.

Louis was boneless. Frantic and fearful. He snapped his teeth, biting out at this aggressive abuser, eyes darting around the minuscule room, arms curled into his own chest. It only registers weakly that he’s looking for Harry, shaken away from his thoughts as he grips his elbows. The song changes to a remix of Stayin’ Alive, and some couple bumps blindly into Louis’ side. They don’t apologize as they dance.

The alpha snarled, startled a few steps back by the harsh click of Louis’ canines clacking together. “No need to be so feisty, Omega. You just need someone to train you. To make you docile.”

“ _ He doesn’t need shit _ .”

Louis didn’t cry at the sound of Harry’s bellowing voice, even though the corners of his eyes pricked dangerously. He just pressed back into Harry’s chest, thanking every deity he could name, thrumming as the air finally returns to his shriveled lungs.

The alpha raised a daring brow and Louis gripped Harry’s arm where it had come to band around his shoulders. “He yours?” He asked gruffly.

Harry snarled, gnashing his teeth. “I’m his.”

“I’d get a mating mark on an ass like that.” The alpha said lowly, still eyeing Louis’ body up and down in the swiveling lights. “Next time I won’t let him catch me by surprise.”

Louis knows the exact moment Harry registers the words. His entire body goes taut like a wire, chest heaving and rumbling with a growl. It builds fast as fire and is just as hot.

He pushed Louis behind him, one hand on his hip, face murderous. The alpha shrank back.

“Do not say  _anything _ else about him. I will warn you  _once _ to back off my omega,” he vibrates with fury, nostrils flared, teeth gnashing as he ruthlessly stared down the cowering alpha before him. “Or  _I will kill you_ _._ ”

The alpha’s head ducked in submission, cheeks flaming in shame. Louis couldn’t blame him. Harry was lethal. Wild. He was dangerous.

Louis had never seen him so  _alpha._

“Harry.” He whispered, wrapping a hand around his wrist and tugging gently. Harry didn’t so much as shift, eyes fixated furiously on the man’s lowered face. Snarls vibrated at his throat, thrumming reminders of which alpha had won, archaic and captivating. He smelled like anger and victory. “Alpha.” Louis said instead, when Harry refused to turn. “Come on, Alpha. I would like to go home.”

And it was only his omega’s request that finally made him listen, release his petrifying gaze and watch as the frozen alpha gasped and stumbled away. Harry let one last bone-quivering growl slip from his mouth before turning his back on the retreating alpha and looking down into Louis’ face. He almost buzzed with fury.

Harry leaned down to scent him in the middle of the dance floor, grumbling until they mixed so thoroughly that there wasn’t a difference between their scents, and Louis let him. Wanted him to. Even through the alarmed stares they got, and the urge to just sink onto his back and cry in repressed revulsion, he clung to Harry’s firm body and pressed Harry’s face tighter into his bared neck.

Harry leaned away and snatched his hand all in one movement, burning with emotion.

“We’re going home.” He announced.

Louis nodded and followed, clutching his hand gratefully, basking in the stroke of Harry’s thumb over his white knuckles.

It felt like safety.

Harry didn’t make a noise until the apartment door closed behind him. And, even then, he just breathed, “Lou.” and shut his eyes, leaning back against the wood.

Louis stared up at him, wide-eyed and silent. Harry was painted in silver and blue from the bleeding moonlight through the window, and in the faint rays, his sweeping eyelashes looked like waves against the cliff of his cheekbones. Angry splotches of red sat high on his cheeks, mouth drawn tight and angry. Frustration was imminent in the creases beside his eyes, between his set brows. Louis’ never seen anyone who’s beautiful like he’s beautiful. Timeless and sculpted. Lovely.

His thumb skidded along Harry’s jaw, hand resting along the column of his warm throat. He could feel Harry’s rabbiting pulse against his palm.

“Hazza,” he breathed through his lips, stepping closer until the tips of their shoes pressed together. “Look at me, Haz.”

He didn’t. He kept his eyes closed, pupils shifting beneath his eyelids, and if Louis didn’t know better, he’d almost think he was calm. Relaxed.

Except, he did know better.

“Tell me what you’re feeling.” Louis murmured, somehow softer than before.

Harry still didn’t open his eyes, but his hand raised to loosely grip around Louis’ thin wrist. “I’m furious.” He whispered raggedly. “I want to go find that guy and kick his teeth in.”

Louis smiled weakly. “I don’t think he’d take too kindly to that.”

Harry didn’t laugh with him. His eyes slid open, tearing into Louis’, straight through his soul. “What if I hadn’t been there?” He breathed. “It’s  _another _ alpha violating you, taking advantage because he thinks he has some twisted  _right _ to your body, and he could’ve succeeded. He would’ve hurt you.” His head ducked, eyes closing once more.

“Hey.” Louis held Harry’s face between his palms, sweet and warm. “I’m a big, tough girl. I tie my own sandals and everything.”

Harry snarled. “Don’t quote  _Hercules _ at me when I’m trying to be mad.” He huffed, exasperated.

Louis sighed. “Harry.”

He sighed right back. “Louis.”

Louis took a step back and spread his arms, smiling softly when Harry looked at him. “Look.” He spun. “I’m alright. Not a scratch or bruise on me.”

And it’s the way Harry’s hand raises to reverently brush his fingertips down the slope of Louis’ outstretched arm. How they linger on the paper-thin skin at the inside of his wrist. How Louis’ heart rate jumps and Harry undoubtably feels it against the pads of his fingers.

“Do you even know how much you’ve consumed me?”

Louis swallowed and watched Harry’s eyes track the movement.

He stole Harry’s hand from his wrist and into his own. Clutched it close as a child with a blanket, as a romantic with a lover.

“Show me.”

Harry sparked into movement like the edge of glass, the crack of lightning across a stormy sky. He crashed his mouth against Louis’,  _into _ Louis’, hands sliding ephemerally along the tops of his thighs before wrapping around them, catching in the bend of Louis’ knees as they hooked around his hips. He pressed Louis’ spine against the cool door, palms plastered scaldingly over his bum, holding them together when Louis hooked his ankles in the small of his back. It feels like swallowing flame, like it’s so hot that it freezes. Like his lungs are filled with blaze that only suffocates when Harry is kissing him. He slipped his fingers into the mop of curls curtaining their faces and revels in the feel as Harry’s hair slides against his skin.

“God,” Harry gasped into Louis’ mouth, into his lungs. The whole of his body pinned him to the wood. “My Lou.”

Louis tipped his head back until the crown of his skull thudded on the door, eyes slipping shut in existential ecstasy. “Your Lou.” He swore, and thinks, achingly idle:  _this is so much nicer now that I can kiss him._

“Louis, can I—“ Harry grappled at the plush curve of his bum and choked. “Can I—I want to—bedroom, please, can I?”

Louis nodded frenetically and smothered Harry’s answering growl with his mouth, hands bracketing his face as the joint figure of them peels off the door. Harry stumbled through the darkened, cold flat, knocking into table edges and jutting corners but not stopping. Never once stopping. It feels heavenly.

Harry kicked the door closed behind them, and Louis’ whole being flashes to the memory of when he’d done the exact thing during his heat. It sends fire flushing through his frayed veins, lighting his buzzing nerve endings until they itch with every brush of skin.

Harry set him onto the mattress and hovered over him, hand stroking emphatically over Louis’ cheek as he peppered his face with kisses. “Lou,” he ground when Louis’ hips rolled up, pressing their hard cocks together, and then,“Lou, we don’t have to—“

It’s enough to snap Louis out of whatever had possessed him to simply  _stay still_ as Harry ravished him. He  _wanted_.

“Everything.” He tugged at Harry’s belt. Unbuckled it. “I want everything.”

It’s enough for Harry, too.

He dipped his head down and pressed his lips to Louis’ collarbone, already tugging at the hem of Louis’ shirt.

“I’ll give you everything.” He swore.

Maybe it’s the moon glimmering along Harry’s sweat-slick back that makes Louis come the first time. Maybe it’s Harry’s tongue in his arse, teeth against his skin.

Harry leaned back as Louis panted, licking his lips, eyes slipping up to Louis’ open mouth. “Taste so good, Omega.” He whispered. “Gonna knot you, make you feel so good. Until you’re crying for it, okay?”

Louis whimpered and nodded, head jerking to the side to press into the pillow.

He’s already close to crying for it, if he’s being transparent. His eyes are burning beautifully behind his eyelids. Still, he breathed out a high, “Please, Haz.” His hips raised off the mattress of their own volition.

“I’ll take care of you,” Harry assuaged sweetly, hand pressed against Louis’ hipbone. He slid up to press their mouths together once more, and when their teeth clacked awkwardly, Louis giggled.

“Graceful.” He teased, breathless and gasping as Harry’s cock pressed against his rim.

And then those aspectabund emerald eyes are catching on Louis’ face, and for the first time, Harry’s pushing into him in a way they can both remember.

It’s involuntary, the way Louis’ head tipped back onto the pillows, jaw falling open, knees hooked around Harry’s hips. The way his stomach sparked and his nails tore into the bedsheets. The way he moaned out, “ _Alpha_.” and thought it must be impossible for anything to feel this good. To  _be _ this good.

“I’ve got you.” Harry swore lowly, circling his hips in a way that rubs the cock of his head against Louis’ prostate. He pulls back and pistons back in, breath heavy. “Know what you need, I know what you need.”

Louis almost laughed at that, except Harry’s teeth scraped along the vein of his throat, finger tracing his stretched rim, and the sound turned to a moan behind his teeth. Harry’s hand darted out to grip the wooden headboard at the noise.

Louis managed to choke out a weak, “Cocky.” His nails carved crescents into the soft skin of Harry’s thrusting hips.

Harry just sank his teeth into Louis’ lower lip and purred, “You know that I know what you like.”

It’s dangerous, Louis’ idea. That’s what makes it fun, though, really.

“Let’s not forget that I know what you like too,” he leaned up to nip at Harry’s earlobe. “ _ Daddy. _ ”

One moment, the headboard was smashing against the wall, clanging with every deep thrust of Harry’s cock into him.

The next, it was splintering in half beneath Harry’s hand.

They both stilled, eyes wide. Louis’ mouth formed an ‘O’ as he craned his head to look at the wood crackling apart, radiating out from where Harry’s hand gripped it. Harry’s face is a mask of disbelief, as if he hadn’t known he was that strong. Hadn’t known that was even possible.

Fuck. It’s the hottest thing Louis has ever seen, hands-down.

“Weak headboard?” Harry offered after a moment, letting go and listening to the wood creak in alarm.

Louis ground onto his hard cock and threw his head back, twice as eager, ten times more turned on. “ _ Strong alpha _ .”

And then they’re both moving in frenzied fervor, rocking together, listening to the way Louis’ bed is breaking apart as Harry fucks into him, hands raking wildly over bare skin. Harry’s teeth scraped Louis’ throat and he let out something akin to a howl, loud and low and wordless, spilling onto his sweat-damp stomach for the second time that night. It’s far too much, far too fast, in a way that makes Louis burn and beg it not to stop.

“Lou, Lou,” Harry chanted reverently, cradling Louis’ face in his palm, canting his hips forward and back with every breath that they steal from each other’s lungs.

Harry says his name like his mouth was carved to shape it.

“Everything.” He went on, hiding his face in Louis’ sweat-damp neck, tongue darting out against his Adam’s apple. The word bounces in the space between their mouths, without context but painfully evident, a praise and a vow. And Louis stumbled over a garbled  _my Luna_ in response, eyes slid shut, waiting for both of them to freeze. To stop whatever they’re caught in, because if they still  _have _ lines, that crosses them.

Harry pounds into him faster.

“Louis, you’re  _everything_.”

His words almost sound like sobs, so Louis clutches at the rolling muscles of his back and holds him endlessly close.

The whole world bleeds to white.

Harry was right. He does scream when he comes for the third time. And the fourth and fifth, after that.

They’re still locked together, rapid breaths yet to settle, sweat cooling on their skin, when Harry presses his face blithely into Louis’ neck. His lips were pressed flat against his pulse, and Louis thoughtlessly blurted, “You have a weird thing with my heartbeat.”

It’s true. Each night, Harry pressed his mouth against Louis’ rabbiting pulse and fell asleep with his face tucked beneath his jaw. Each time they tangled together on the couch, Harry’s hands wandered to brush against his throat, cataloguing the pound of his heart. Even when Louis was just making tea, Harry’s arms slipped around his waist and the tip of his nose bumped into his neck, eyes falling shut. It was a constant, Harry checking his pulse, as if reminding himself that it’s still beating on.

Harry shrugged unabashedly. “Like knowing you’re alive. Safe. Makes me feel better.”

Louis doesn’t point out that craving their omega’s heartbeat to feel calm was only something mated alphas needed. By the time he might’ve, Harry is snoring, nose tucked beneath his chin.

Louis just stroked along his spine and shut his eyes contentedly.

Niall’s eyebrows were in his hairline when Louis limped out of Harry’s room the next morning, swamped in his band tee, reaching exhaustedly for the cereal.

He grinned cheerily. “Good morning, liar.”

“Good morning, hetero.” Louis deadpanned back, throwing him a nauseatingly fake smile.

“Where’s lover boy?”

Harry had remained utterly passed out when Louis climbed carefully out of bed, but Louis didn’t expect it to last long. Not when the alpha in him realized his omega was gone from their nest.

Louis grabbed the milk and poured it in the bowl, ignoring when it sloshed over the side and splashed on the counter. “He’s sleeping.” He managed to supply blandly. He sat at the kitchen table, wincing when his bum bumped into the wooden chair, and Niall just giggled into a cold slice of pizza. “Get some real breakfast, for God’s sake, Niall.”

“I think you’re the one who needs to catch up on calories, Tommo.” Niall snorted.

“I wasn’t complaining while I lost them.”

“I could hear you decidedly not complaining, believe it or not.”

So, Louis shut his mouth. Whatever. He just had the best sex of his life, possibly the best sex to ever occur on the planet Earth. He wins.

And he’s about to brag just that, maybe throw in some wild gesticulations with his spoon just for fun, shut mouth be damned, when Harry stumbled out of his bedroom, rubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand and wandering towards the kitchen like he was being pulled. Louis stood without thinking to greet him, wrapping his arms loosely around Harry’s waist. He stood on his tiptoes to scent him even though they still reeked of each other. It’s the action of it, maybe. Or the pleased hum that leaked from Harry’s sleep-hoarse throat.

His hands settled on Louis’ shoulders, thumb tracing subconsciously along the length of his collarbone. “You’re seriously gonna need a new headboard.” He mumbled.

Louis snorted and flicked the base of Harry’s spine. “You think?”

Harry caught at the offending hand, maneuvered around to kiss it, and broke away to make his own breakfast, humming under his breath. Louis sat down calmly at the kitchen table. When Harry took the seat beside him, he hooked their ankles together.

And that’s all there is to it.

“I think it’s unhealthy.”

Louis took his spoon out of his mouth and made a face. “What the fuck, Zayn?”

They were sitting in the park. Niall, Harry and Liam were kicking around a football, squealing and arguing like kids, but Louis was busy eating the ice cream he’d gotten from a stand, too sore to play, and Zayn was sitting out in favor of sketching the trees. The sun was glimmering brightly in the peak of the sky, painting Harry in all these lovely gold and ambers, and Louis hadn’t stopped watching him since he’d sat down. He was just pretty. Effervescent, like a thousand light particles fastened together in the rogue shape of beauty.

“I think this whole thing with you and Harry is unhealthy.” Zayn repeated, setting his sketch pad on the grass and crossing his legs beneath him.

Louis gnawed protectively on the end of his plastic spoon. “It’s not like we did it on purpose. Neither of us  _want _ this to be happening.”

“Neither of you are putting in any effort to stop it.” Zayn threw back calmly, raising an obsidian brow.

Louis leaned back. “Were you not  _there _ for Niall calling your mate in a panic because I couldn’t breathe on the kitchen floor?” He snapped.

Zayn took the spoon from between his teeth and set it back in the styrofoam bowl. “All you were thinking about was how much you missed Harry, of course you snapped. Personally, I think you should just listen to what you want, but if you’re trying to convince yourself that you’re not mates, at least put some real effort into it.”

Louis’ chest was starting to hurt. He glanced over to Harry, but Harry wasn’t looking back at him. “I  _did _ put effort into it, okay, my omega—“

“Stop talking about your omega like it isn’t a part of you.” Zayn snapped, shaking his head. “It’s not a separate entity making  _suggestions_ , Louis. It knows instinctual facts that the human side of you can’t pick up on. It knows what’s right for you.”

His mouth snapped shut.

Fuck Zayn.

Fuck  _himself._

When half a minute had passed and Louis hadn’t found a way to unlock his jaw or stave off the stabbing ache between his ribs, Zayn’s face softened, and he spoke where Louis couldn’t. “I know I’m not your best friend,” he began quietly. “But I consider you mine. And I say that with full knowledge that you’re quite pissed at me right now because you don’t want to admit that I’m right.” He sighed softly. “The only reason that I’m right is because I’m trying to look at it objectively, with your best interest in mind. If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong and you can rub it in my face and I’ll apologize, but I think you’ll be lying if you say that. And we both know you can’t lie. Not about important things.”

Louis stole another look at Harry when it felt like his heart wasn’t going to start beating again. He was grinning as he bounced the ball on his knee and kicked a well-aimed shot to Liam, jogging across a makeshift field to guard Niall. His hair bounced when he ran, dark ringlets jubilantly springing against his brow, and his pearly teeth glimmered in the sunshine bleeding through the canopy of leaves above their heads. His eyes were crinkled from his smile. Sweat dotted his tanned arms, and Louis could  _see _ them, gripping the headboard the night before, splintering it beneath his large hands. His ribs ached with untimely desire to touch. To be close to. To crack open and cradle Harry’s whole body within his own.

“We had sex last night.” Louis blurted unceremoniously, gazing up at the wind-shifting branches instead of to where Zayn was undoubtably studying him like a bacteria under a microscope.

Zayn stayed silent, though. Like he was waiting in case Louis had more to say.

He did, apparently.

“And it was fucking spectacular, frankly. Phenomenal. I genuinely think there were moments when I left my body.” He said, all in rush, abruptly desperate to just  _tell_ someone. “And it’s just,” he sighed and made a noise of discontent. “Like, I wish I knew what was going on, I guess, but I also don’t feel like I  _need _ to. I don’t feel like Harry and I need to discuss it, or whatever. Everything feels so fucking natural between us that it doesn’t feel like we  _have _ to talk to each other.”

“You’re mates, Louis.” Zayn stated, simple and obvious. Like everyone knew. Maybe they did. “Your souls were crafted for each other. You don’t feel the need to talk because the omega inside you already thinks you’re in a relationship, because you  _are_. Harry is your soulmate. And you need to make sure you both know that, or it’s going to kill you, never having confirmation.” He leaned back on the grass. “You’re dating Harry, and he’s your mate.”

Louis wanted to retract his previous statement. Fucking  _bless _ Zayn Malik, the stunning dickhead.

He stayed quiet for minutes that felt like hours, drinking in the echo of Harry’s laugh across the lawn and running the blades of grass through his fingers, and Zayn let him.

God, he was daft.

It felt like a true revelation, an epiphany, the kind with swelling violin music in the background and a dramatic change in lighting as the camera spun. His mind tumbled sloppily over memories; Harry’s hand tangled with his and never wanting to let go, Harry’s mouth on his and never wanting to part. Harry giggling into his neck while they watch bad telenovelas that neither of them understand. Harry inside of him, pupils blown impossibly wide when they meet eyes. And, even before that, it’s Harry always being a little  _more _ than a best mate, forever at his side. Always within reach, normally with his arms already outstretched to accept Louis into his body. It’s Harry, Harry, Harry, the only constant. The two of them, their souls twined together like single threads that weave a whole tapestry. He wondered how long everyone had been trying to tell them. To make them  _see_.

Zayn laughed when he whistled and flopped back onto the grass. “What the fuck, Zayn, why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Zayn flicked his shoulder. “I’ve been trying to tell you since you met, bro, we all have.” An ungraceful snort that made them both giggle. “It was obvious.”

“Fucking lovely to know.” Louis joked, face tilted to the sky. His ice cream was melted in his cup. He pressed his lips together. “Do you think he likes me back?”

Zayn punched his shoulder. “Shut the hell up.”

“Zayn!”

But he was laughing, shaking his head and picking his sketchbook up again, rolling his eyes fondly. “Shut the hell up.” He repeated.

Louis smiled at the trees.

It had been objectively untroubling, thinking about actually talking to Harry when he was still lying on the grass and the moment wasn’t staring him in the face.

Now, though.

They’d just gotten home from dinner with the boys, which had actually just been hot dogs from a cart in the park, and the sun had sunk behind the horizon as Harry had toed off his boots. Niall was at Liam and Zayn’s.

Louis hadn’t been scared all day, is the thing. He’d traded secret smiles with Zayn and buzzed beneath his skin with unparalleled joy, gazing at Harry’s ethereal face without even knowing his eyes had shifted. He’s as close to one hundred percent sure that Harry is his mate that he could be, which is why this shouldn’t scare him.

But he’s here, watching Harry meander obliviously through their apartment, and, yeah, he’s scared. Scared Harry doesn’t  _want _ to be his mate. That Harry hasn’t felt the same tug and desire the way Louis has for weeks. That they wouldn’t be good together, that they wanted different things, that it would go wrong in every place Louis pleaded and prayed for it to go right.

He needed this to go right.

His hands were shaking when Harry turned to look at him, brows furrowed at the stress coating Louis’ scent, so he hid them behind his back.

“Is everything okay?” Harry asked, head cocking. He’s naturally still in the way Louis would’ve been naturally restless if he weren’t paralyzed with emotion, the towering outline of him silhouetted by the shine of street lamps. Why haven’t they turned on any lights?

And they probably looked like poorly-placed statues, in the middle of the room, stock still with a three foot chasm separating them, staring as if they’re about to duel.

“Harry?” Louis squeaked.

“Louis?”

He swallowed. Sighed. His heart was pounding inside his chest. “Do you think we might be in love?” He asked quietly, drinking in the blaze of Harry’s green eyes. The slope of his nose.

Harry watched him for a long moment, expression indiscernible save for the pounding pulse at the base of his throat. He made a noise in the back of his throat and shoved his hands in his pockets. Nodded minutely. It was enamoring.

“I think so, yeah.”

The confidence he’d lost floods back like a downpour after a drought. 

This is  _Harry._ Of course he feels the same as Louis. Of course they want the same things, of course they’d go right. Of course they’re mates. Everything that they do is as one. Why wouldn’t this be?

Louis almost sagged against the door before he managed to hold himself up, knees knocking. “Really?”

And he did slump into Harry’s body when Harry crossed the room and took him into his arms, hands large and warm, smiling softly when their noses bumped together. “Of course, Louis.” He sighed contentedly. “It’s you and I. We’re...”

He gaped around words he couldn’t find, and Louis filled in the blank for him, hand flattening over the soft cotton of his shirt. “Us.” He nuzzled Harry’s cheek. “In love.”

“Yeah.” He brushed hair from Louis’ eyes, smiling so fondly Louis could faint from it, eyes twinkling as they stared at each other. “In love.”

Louis tilted his head up sweetly, and Harry kissed him without asking, soft and gentle and warm. Their lips moved naturally. Like they’d been shaped from the same mass of stardust and clay.

“So in love.” Harry whispered into his mouth.

Louis swung his arms around Harry’s neck and sighed contentedly.

“So in love.”

Truly, they are.

Louis had sprawled himself across Harry when they laid down in his bed, laptop propped up on a pillow and tinnily playing an episode of Friends. He was only half-paying attention. The rest of him was cataloguing the leisurely slide of Harry’s hand up and down his spine, the press of his thighs against the outside of Louis’ hips, the steady rise and fall of his chest. It was like trying to stare at the sun. Louis’ soul was blinded by the sheer perfection of domesticity, of simple, all-consuming love. He was dizzy with it.

Harry’s mouth was on his neck when he spoke. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.” He whispered, eyelashes fluttering beneath Louis’ jaw. He inhaled deeply, and then pressed a kiss to Louis’ scent gland, mixing them together.

It was the slip of Harry’s hot palm beneath the hem of his shirt that actually made him answer.

“We’re mates.”

Harry’s hand paused, just momentarily.

It began again. “Mmhmm.” He hummed, nose sliding along the vein in his neck. “Did you—I mean, did you not want—“

“No!” Louis started, spun in his arms, straddled his hips as he grabbed Harry’s face between his hands. “Jesus Christ, no, that’s not what I meant at all. Shit. No.”

Harry chuckled. “Okay.” He stroked up and down Louis’ sides, comforting and easy in every place that Louis wasn’t. “Then what?”

“I—“ he swallowed through a sand-dry throat. “Just wanted to make sure. That you knew.”

He went pliantly when Harry pulled him closer, folding their bodies together, brows bumping gently. “Lou, can I tell you something?”

Louis stared into the undimmed starlight sparking in Harry’s pine irises as he nodded. His eyes almost crossed in an effort to keep their gazes tangled together.

“I wanted it to be you.” Harry breathes, and the whole of Louis’ soul turns into shimmering warmth.

He brushed hair from Louis’ eyes and went on, a little shakier than before, voice wavering on the edge of the secret he’s buried. “I was never sure, because I was young and I wasn’t listening to myself, but I knew what I wanted. I tried to talk myself out of it so many times. Didn’t want to ruin anything.” He gave a wane smile that grew into a real one when Louis stroked the side of his face. “I pretended it wasn’t true, but I always,  _always _ wanted it to be you.”

It’s astounding, how much he loves Harry, now that he knows it. Breathtaking.

“Harry,” Louis exhaled reverently, desperately, lips brushing warm lips, hearts beating in time. “Harry, I want you to fuck me  _right now_ _._ ”

He pleaded with his eyes closed, already squirming, but he could feel Harry’s fond, satisfied smirk against his slack bottom lip. Harry’s tongue dipped into his open mouth and ran behind his teeth.

It builds rapidly, the crackling desire beneath Louis’ ribcage and in the middle of his palms. Just the slide of Harry’s tongue, the brush of their spit-slick bottom lips has him soaking through his boxers, rutting his cock desperately against the hollow of Harry’s hip.

Harry gripped his arse and ground out, “Be _still_. ”

Louis stopped moving immediately, even when desire sparks painfully at the base of his spine and Harry kneads at his bum. “Harry—“

“I’m going to take care of you.” Harry whispered raggedly, lips bruising against Louis’ throat. “Am I going to take care of you? Are you gonna trust me?”

Louis blew air between his lips pleadingly. “Always trust you.”

He’s on his back in a heartbeat, eyelids fluttering in their effort to stay open and trained on Harry’s onyx gaze. On the way he pants, lips parted, chest heaving. “Louis,” he groaned, head dipping until their brows bump. “Louis, I love you.”

It’s visceral, the way those words slice into his abdomen and burrow right beside his heart. Perfectly comfortable. Louis hadn’t even realized the void had existed until it was being filled.

Tears sparked in the corners of his eyes. At the base of his throat. “Tell me again.” He cried, just hot breath, just indecipherable shapes of words on his tongue that Harry rearranged into a plead.

He does. When he kissed down Louis’ chest, popped the button of his jeans, he swallowed around his aching cock. When he pressed their mouths together, slid two fingers into Louis’ slick, spread him open, pushed in. When their brows fell against each other. When he brushed away Louis’ tears.  _I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you I love you IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou —_

“Wait.” Louis whispered, one hand wrapping around the damp curve of Harry’s neck when he made to pull back. His fingers slipped down from the top knob of his spine, sweeping through beading sweat as they slid across the plane of Harry’s back. “Wait, can you just...” he gasped. Gaped. “I want to feel you. Just for a bit. Please.”

Harry’s top lip dragged across Louis’ bottom one as he hummed gently. “Baby.” He said simply, and Louis understood. “Pretty baby.”

So he let his body fall pliant against the mattress, eyes fluttering closed. He catalogued the warmth inside his body, the length of Harry pressing against all the right places even when he’s still, impossibly deep and lovely. Like they were made to fit together. After a moment, he took Harry’s hot palm in his own and laid it across his stomach, below his navel. Harry’s fingers splayed.

“Can you feel?” Louis pressed his hand down and Harry gasped like he’d been slapped. They moaned in tandem. “Can you?”

“Mmm,” Harry nodded through his teeth, dug into his lower lip, white and then red. His palm slid, pushing down into Louis’ soft belly until Louis was almost crying with it, squirming in overwhelming pleasure. White spots danced jubilantly in his eyes. “Fuck, Omega,” he hissed, hips vibrating with restrained tension.

“Okay, you can move, please move,” Louis begged loudly, abrupt as it was sincere, nails scraping down to Harry’s waist and digging  in .

Harry’s hips snapped forward as he jumped into a rhythm that had them both whining, cock dragging along Louis’ slick inside, knot already growing as Louis writhed under him. One hand stayed planted on his stomach, nearly swelling with every thrust, and the other painted an exploratory path over his damp body.  _We should do this with paint,_ Louis thought idly, all to himself, head tipped back into the pillows.  _So I can see his marks on me._

The other hand slid up Louis’ bare chest, thumb brushing over his nipple in a way that had him moaning, and settled loosely at the base of his throat, pads of his fingers against his jugular, thumb brushing along his collarbone.

“ _ Fuck. _ ” Louis’ eyes rolled back in his head at the touch.

“Call me it.”

He cracked one eye open and chuckled through his teeth, unbothered when it bled into a groan as Harry nailed his prostate. “I’m not calling you Daddy.”

“Not that.” His hand flexed, fingers twitching, and his brow dropped onto Louis’ shoulder. “Call me it.”

Louis nearly came all over his own stomach.

“ _Alpha_.” He whimpered, legs hooking around Harry’s pistoning hips. “Shit, Alpha, oh my  _god_ ,”

“Good boy.”

Louis remembers everything about that night when he reflects on it; the whisper of  _I love you_ and  _mate _ and  _please _ against damp skin, the scrape of the sheets against his calves, the weight of Harry between his hips. The way Harry’s teeth dragged along his neck, so close to his mating spot, and Louis came from just the tease of it. How Harry’s knot swelled against his rim when he spilled and it felt like everything finally being right in the world again. How they fell together, sweaty and sated but grinning softly, mapping the details of each other’s face with warm fingertips. But the thing that stays, that makes a home for itself in the file that Louis saves for the most important memories, is how Harry threaded their fingers together and whispered  _Lou _ before he came, reverently, adoringly. Like it was oxygen. It felt like love.

The stars were doing cartwheels outside the windows when Louis shut his eyes, head pillowed on Harry’s chest.

He doesn’t dream. Maybe there’s nothing to improve.

“Alpha?” He whispers the next morning, early and sweet. The curtains are drawn, and the room is as dark as midnight. Louis is content to just lie there for the rest of his life. It can’t be any past six in the morning.

“Hmm.” Harry hummed lowly. His voice was raspy with misuse, but his hand hadn’t stopped stroking the bare slope of Louis’ shoulder for half an hour.

Louis sucked in a nauseating breath that tumbled around his lungs, eyes sliding shut. “Will you bond me?”

The air left the room.

He spun in Harry’s arms, looking up into his unreadable face. His eyes met Louis’. “Not now,” Louis went on, gnawing on his lower lip. “But... someday. When we’re older. On our feet.”

For a mind-bending moment, Louis was almost afraid he was going to say no.

Then, he smiled.

“When Niall moves out, you mean.” He chuckled, squishing Louis’ cheek between his hands until his lips parted. He kissed them gently. “Of course.”

Louis let loose the breath that had swirled into a vortex and grinned. “We should just get rid of him.”

“Okay.” Harry laughed. “We’ll kill Niall and have sex all day.”

“We’ll kill everyone and make it so it’s just the two of us.”

“My sweet little maniac.”

Louis hummed into his neck, hiding away his nauseatingly sweet smile, eyes closed as he watched colors dance behind his eyelids.

“Lou.”

“Yes?”

“How did you know?”

He leaned back to look up into Harry’s face, brows drawn together over his eyes, mouth turned down. “What do you mean?”

Harry shrugged with faux-disinterest and wrapped a lock of Louis’ hair around his finger. “How did you know we were mates?”

“Honestly?” Louis chuckled. “Zayn. He knocked some sense into me at the park yesterday. But I think I knew before that. The omega in me did, anyway.”

Harry chuckled into his hair. “Bless Zayn, I guess.” He offered teasingly, lips tracing the shell of Louis’ ear.

Louis nodded. “We can send him a fruit basket.”

The hum that rumbled from Harry’s chest vibrated both of them, low and rolling. “I like that.” He offered, quietly. His eyes were blown dark once more. “I like hearing you say that.”

Louis’ brow pulled up on a hook of skepticism. “Fruit basket?”

“No.” A decided shake of his head. “We. You and me. Us.”

It was the way Louis’ heart swelled that truly caught him off guard, tripling it’s size within his chest, shoving his other organs together to make room. It was almost painful. In the most beautiful way.

Louis leaned up and kissed him.

It’s the perfection of them, really. The way they fall together, over and over and over again, and one more time after that, and they still fit. Like two halves of one whole.

A month later, they were sat on the balcony in each other’s arms, bickering sweetly in between kisses.

“Okay, this?” Niall gestured to the tangled, sun-soaked figure of them, mouth turned down around the lip of his mug. “I hate this. Sickening.”

“Shut up, Horan.” Louis snapped, smiling down at Harry’s face from where he was perched atop his thighs. Harry giggled and poked his cheek. “Keep going, love.”

“I was just saying that you’re beautiful.”

“Cheeky shit.”

Harry pinched his side. “Be nice.”

“Or what, you’ll spank me?”

Niall gagged and ran into the apartment, sliding the door closed behind him.

Harry wasting no time before palming Louis’ bum, squeezing it in his palms, digging his nails in through the fabric. His eyes sparked through his pink sunglasses, and Louis smiled at him. “Maybe I will,” he dropped a kiss on Louis’ sharp collarbone. “Maybe I won’t.”

Louis tugged on a fistful of Harry’s hair. “You know you like to. Knotted so fast last time you did.” He chuckled, voice casual, fingertips dancing over his cheeks. “Not the fastest ever, though.”

“Yeah?” Harry raised a brow and laughed. “Which one was that?”

He cocked a brow back. “When your hand was around my throat.”

And Harry just chuckled, eyes far off as he thought back, the smile on his face mirroring the one growing on Louis’. He hadn’t stopped smiling for a month.

“That was good sex.” Harry agreed, nodding a little. His hand twitched on Louis’ arse.

“And we weren’t even drunk.” Louis bumped their noses together. “What was I thinking?”

“Maybe that you love me.”

“I do.”

“When’s the wedding?”

“After you bond me.”

Harry teeth skidded along his mating spot, scraping softly in a way that sent zings of lightening through Louis’ rushing blood. “Mm.” He hummed, licking at Louis’ throat. Louis rutted his hips forward, only half-teasing, and Harry growled, “I’m kicking Niall out.”

Louis just burst into delighted laughter, the kind that bubbled up his throat and manifested into the afternoon air surrounding them, tipping Harry’s chin up with two fingers. He pressed their mouths together through a smile, arms slung over Harry’s shoulders.

“No, but seriously, I’m kicking Niall out.”

He tipped his head back and laughed.

Louis wondered, sometimes, if he’d gone to the awkward, second-year-uni-student version of himself on the day he met Harry and told him, “ _he’s your alpha_ _._ ” whether he would’ve realized sooner. Whether Then-Louis would have known, right then. Or if he’d roll his eyes, laughing slightly at the baby-faced boy in the blue beanie across the room, shaking his head. Saying “ _I don’t even know him._ ” minutes before Then-Harry bumped into him as he washed his hands in the bathroom. If Now-Louis would’ve given him that look, the look that said _ I’m wiser_ even though all he really happened to be was older, and said “ _Not now, but you will._ ” If things would’ve been different.

He’s glad that he can’t change it.

They watch the sun move across the sky, tangled together on the balcony, empty mugs of tea set haphazardly before them. Harry writes his name along Louis’ spine with his fingertip, and it feels more like home than anything he’s ever known before. Louis whispers words into his neck, unbothered at the ones Harry doesn’t catch, blushing at the ones he hears. His hands go numb, squished between he and Harry’s bodies, but he doesn’t move them. Doesn’t particularly want to. He’s perfectly happy with where he’s ended up.

“I love you, Haz.”

“I love you, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading !! this actually means a lot to me bc i really loves writing this, so i hope you enjoyed !! leave kudos and comments if that’s your thing  
> have a wonderful day!! if you need something to smile about, fairies ride around on corgis in Welsh folklore and i think that’s beautiful  
> please come say hi on tumblr !! goodmorninglou or here’s the url: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/goodmorninglou  
> love you!!  
> <333


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